The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has brought charges against 11 alleged masterminds in the Ponzi scheme and crypto pyramid Forsage.
As announced by the commission, the charges were filed in the United States District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, and it involved four of the platform’s founders living outside of the US and 11 residents in America.
Forsage was initially launched as an Ethereum-based investment platform, but it was later launched on the Ethereum blockchain. Tron BNB Chain. The scheme allows investors to earn money by recruiting others into it. Smart contracts make it possible for investors to reward people with overflows via a series of downlines.
According to the SEC’s investigation, four masterminds, Vladimir Okhotnikov a/k/a Jane Doe a/k/a Lola Ferrari and Mikhail Sergeev, created Forsage.io. The scheme was then promoted by the other defendants. Forsage was reportedly promoted and opened access for US residents to the platform without regard to the underlying securities laws.
The regulator stated that the Forsage defendants continued to promote the platform in spite of warnings from the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Philippines and the Montana Commissioner of Securities and Insurance, both in March 2021 and March 2021.
“As the complaint alleges, Forsage is a fraudulent pyramid scheme launched on a massive scale and aggressively marketed to investors,” said Carolyn Welshhans, Acting Chief of the SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit. Fraudsters cannot avoid federal securities laws. They can not focus their schemes on smart contract and blockchains.
Although the case has been opened, the four masterminds have not yet appeared in court. Two of the remaining defendants in the case, Samuel D. Ellis from Louisville and Sarah L. Theissen from Hartford, Wisconsin, have agreed not to pay civil penalties.
Recent frauds involving cryptocurrencies have been in the news. Ruja Ignatova is the founder of OneCoin and has been listed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) list of the top 10 most wanted criminals.
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