U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, (SEC), has shut down a $62million global cryptocurrency mining and trading scheme. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice (DOJ), has indicted its chief executive officer and founder. He faces a maximum penalty of 45 year imprisonment if he’s convicted on all charges, according to the Justice Department.
SEC Annulls $62M Global Cryptocurrency Fraud Program
US Securities and Exchange Commission announced Friday that they have stopped an illegal crypto trading and mining scheme.
MCC International, also known as Mining Capital Coin, was charged by the SEC. Its founders Luiz Carlos Capuci Jr. (aka Mining Capital Coin) and Emerson Souza Pires were charged along with two other entities they controlled. The charges are “in connection with the unregistered offerings and fraudulent sales of investment plans called mining packages to thousands of investors,” the agency noted.
Securities watchdog outlined that this is the case since at most January 2018:
MCC, Capuci and Pires offered mining packages to 65 535 investors around the world and promised 1 percent daily returns for up to 52 weeks.
MCC investors also claimed that they were promised bitcoin (BTC) returns when they first invested. However, the defendants later “required investors to withdraw their investments in tokens called capital coin (CPTL), which was MCC’s own token.”
DOJ Charges MCC’s Founder and CEO
In an independent announcement, Friday’s U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Capuci was also indicted as the founder and CEO of MCC. MCC is a purported crypto mining and investment platform. The scheme involved $62 million in global cryptocurrency fraud.
Capuci of Port St. Lucie, Florida, misled investors about his platform’s cryptocurrency mining and investment program, luring them to invest in MCC’s “mining packages,” the DOJ described. He and his co-conspirators claimed that MCC had an international network of cryptocurrency mining machines that could generate “substantial profits and guaranteed returns” for investors.
They also touted MCC’s own cryptocurrency as a purported decentralized autonomous organization that was “stabilized by revenue from the biggest cryptocurrency mining operation in the world,” the DOJ added, noting:
However, Capuci operated a fraudulent investment scheme and did not use investors’ funds to mine new cryptocurrency, as promised, but instead diverted the funds to cryptocurrency wallets under his control.
The indictment further alleges that Capuci touted and fraudulently marketed MCC’s purported “trading bots” as an additional investment mechanism to help investors profit in the cryptocurrency market.
According to the DOJ, MCC’s founder allegedly hired promoters and associates to help promote MCC as a pyramid scheme. He also concealed whereabouts of fraud proceeds and laundered them through various cryptocurrency exchanges. Justice Department further stated:
Capuci was charged with conspiring to commit wire fraud, conspiracy in securities fraud, as well as conspiracy to launder international cash. Capuci faces a maximum sentence of 45 years imprisonment for all of the charges if he’s convicted.
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