- The Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against Jonathan Adam and Tanner Adam over a $60 million Ponzi scheme.
- SEC says it received emergecy relief to freeze the brothers’ assets
The US Securities and Exchange Commission announced it charged two brothers over a $60 million Ponzi scheme that impacted more than 80 investors in the US.
Per the SEC’s press release on Aug. 26, Jonathan Adam and Tanner Adam lured investors with a promise of 13.5% return on their investment every month.
Read more: SEC charges Abra for offering unregistered crypto securities
Defendants lied to investors
The brothers also lied to investors by stating that Jonathan had created a crypto “bot” and that it could identify arbitrage trading opportunities on a crypto trading platform. Other than this, the duo’s project would put investor funds in a lending pool and that “short of a global market meltdown, investor funds were safe.”
In reality, the project was simply a scam targeted at unsuspecting investors. The SEC also pointed out that Jonathan hid his previous conviction on securities fraud from the investors.
Jonathan and Tanner used investor funds to pay alleged monthly returns and splashed millions of dollars on their personal endeavours. These include down payment and instalment on a $30 million condominium in Miami and $480,000 on luxury cars.
On Monday, the SEC announced it had obtained emergency relief allowing it to freeze the two brothers’ assets.
The regulator’s complaint, filed at the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, also charged the brothers’ companies GCZ Global and Triten Financial Group over anti-fraud violations of federal securities laws. According to the SEC, the brothers did not object to the asset freeze.
Meanwhile, the agency seeks a permanent injunction against Jonathan and Tanner, as well as disgorgement of all ill-gotten gains and civil penalties.