The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a $45 million complaint against CoinDeal Crypto Scheme fraudsters. The complaint is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, per SEC’s official press release. The accused entities and individuals are Neil Chandran, Garry Davidson, Michael Glaspie, Amy Mossel, Linda Knott, AEO Publishing Inc., Banner Co-Op, Inc., and BannersGo, LLC.

The accused are alleged to have used the investors’ money to purchase real estate, cars, and a bot. Unregistered securities were sold to raise $45 million from worldwide investors. As per the false claims made by Chandran, Davidson, Glaspie, Knott, and Mossel, investors were made to believe that stupendous returns would be reaped with investing in CoinDeal. These would then be sold for trillions of dollars to wealthy buyers, the complaint alleges.

False and misleading statements were made by Chandran, Davidson, Glaspie, Knott, and Mossel. The assured returns that were communicated to the investors pertaining to the value of CoinDeal were also misleading. False also was the stature of the parties shaping the supposed sale of CoinDeal. The investment funds’ actual usage was also concealed from investors.

Daniel Gregus, Director of the SEC’s Chicago Regional Office, said,

We allege the defendants falsely claimed access to valuable blockchain technology and that the imminent sale of the technology would generate investment returns of more than 500,000 times for investors. As alleged in our complaint, in reality this was all just an elaborate scheme where the defendants enriched themselves while defrauding tens of thousands of retail investors.

As per the complaint, the promised sale of CoinDeal didn’t take place, whereas any distributions to CoinDeal investors also weren’t made. Alleged also is a collective misappropriation of millions of dollars of investor funds for personal use by defendants. Chandran allegedly used investor funds to buy cars, real estate, and a boat.

The SEC has charged the accused In the light of the Securities Act and Exchange Act as follows:

Chandran, Davidson, Glaspie, Knott, Banner Co-Op., and BannersGo are charged with violating the anti-fraud and registration provisions. 

Davidson, Glaspie, Knott, Banner Co-Op., and BannersGo face charges of assisting in and abetting a couple of Chandran’s violations of the anti-fraud provisions.

Mossel and AEO Publishing are charged with assisting in and abetting Glaspie’s violations of the anti-fraud and registration provisions.