Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, Lil Yachty Among Celebrities Charged In SEC Crypto Case

deadline.com:

Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, musicians Lil Yachty, Ne-Yo, Soulja Boy, Akon and Austin Mahone and adult film star Kendra Lust were s charged Wednesday for illegally promoting the securities of crypto companies at the center of an SEC investigation.

The commission today charged crypto asset entrepreneur Justin Sun and three of his wholly-owned companies for the unregistered offer and sale of crypto asset securities Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT); fraudulently manipulating the secondary market for TRX through “wash trading”; and for orchestrating a scheme to pay celebrities to tout TRX and BTT without disclosing their compensation.Lohan, Paul, DeAndre Cortez Way (Soulja Boy), Austin Mahone, Michele Mason (Kendra Lust), Miles Parks McCollum (Lil Yachty), Shaffer Smith (Ne-Yo) and Aliaune Thiam (Akon) were charged for “illegally touting TRX and/or BTT without disclosing that they were compensated for doing so and the amount of their compensation,” the SEC said.

The commission said that all but Soulja Boy and Mahone agreed to pay a total of more than $400,000 in disgorgement, interest and penalties to settle the charges, without admitting or denying the findings of the probe.

“This case demonstrates again the high risk investors face when crypto asset securities are offered and sold without proper disclosure,” SEC chair Gary Gensler said. “As alleged, Sun and his companies not only targeted U.S. investors in their unregistered offers and sales, generating millions in illegal proceeds at the expense of investors, but they also coordinated wash trading on an unregistered trading platform to create the misleading appearance of active trading in TRX. Sun further induced investors to purchase TRX and BTT by orchestrating a