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McAfee, Pump n Dump, Twitter, SEC Charges
Don't a lot of people have Youtube channels that earn a decent income doing this?
“McAfee and Watson used social media to perpetrate an age-old pump-and-dump scheme that earned them nearly two million dollars,” said FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney Jr.
“Additionally, they allegedly used the same social media platform to promote the sale of digital tokens on behalf of ICO issuers without disclosing to investors the compensation they were receiving to tout these securities on behalf of the ICO.
“When engaging in illegal activity, simply finding new ways to carry out old tricks won’t produce different results. Investment fraud and money laundering schemes carry a strict penalty under federal law.”
The first scheme allegedly involved a fraudulent practice called scalping. Prosecutors say Mr McAfee, Mr Watson and other members of the team bought large quantities of publicly traded cryptocurrency altcoins at cheap market prices, with the advance knowledge that Mr McAfee planned to publicly endorse them via his Twitter account.
After the purchases, Mr McAfee allegedly published false and misleading tweets recommending the altcoins to members of the public, the aim being to artificially inflate their market prices without disclosing that he himself owned a large quantity.
“McAfee had given false assurances that he would disclose such information in various tweets and public statements during the scalping scheme,” prosecutors say.
The defendants then sold their investment positions in the altcoins into the “temporary but significant short term market price increases” that Mr McAfee’s tweets generated, earning significant profits.
In the second alleged scheme, the McAfee team used his Twitter account to publicly tout fundraising events called ‘initial coin offerings’ (ICOs), in which start-up businesses issued and sold digital tokens to the public.
Prosecutors say Mr McAfee concealed the fact that the businesses were compensating him for his promotion of the events with “a substantial portion” of the funds raised.
“From approximately on or about December 20, 2017 through on or about February 10, 2018, McAfee, Watson and other team members collectively earned more than $11 million in undisclosed compensation they took steps to affirmatively hide from investors.”
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission have filed separate civil charges against Mr McAfee and Mr Watson.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/j...f0f93ff1879223
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Originally Posted by DiggityDaggityDo
