Skip to main content

DJ Khaled and Floyd Mayweather charged by US SEC for Illegally promoting Bitcoin

                             DJ Khaled and?Floyd Mayweather charged by US SEC for Illegally promoting Bitcoin
Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr and music producer DJ Khaled will pay thousands of dollars to settle charges that they violated US financial laws.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission announced the settlement on Thursday as the US financial regulator said the men failed to disclose payments they received to promote certain cryptocurrency investments.

The men neither admitted nor denied the claims, but agreed to pay combined penalties totalling more than $750,000. The two cases are the first the SEC has brought over touting violations involving initial coin offerings or ICOs, a relatively new investment vehicle associated with crypto-currencies. An ICO allows people to invest in a company by buying "tokens" or "coins" that it issues.

Despite the new language, the SEC has warned investors that it views many of the offerings as investments governed by existing securities laws. Those rules require disclosure of payments in exchange for publicity.  In this case, the SEC said Mayweather received $300,000 to promote three separate offerings, including one by Centra Tech, a Miami company that the SEC accused of fraud in April.

Mayweather's promotions included a message to his Twitter followers that Centra's ICO "starts in a few hours. Get yours before they sell out, I got mine…" Khaled was paid $50,000 by the same company, the SEC said.

The SEC said DJ Khaled agreed to repay the $50,000 he received for the endorsement, as well as a $100,000 fine and interest while Mayweather will repay the $300,000 he received, as well as a $300,000 fine and interest.

SEC Enforcement Division Co-Director Steven Peikin said the cases were a reminder that investors should "be sceptical of investment advice posted to social media platforms, and should not make decisions based on celebrity endorsements".

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mrs Len Burton was a Cotswolds mother of three renowned for her perfect scones - but was also a colonel in Russian intelligence who sent Britain's atomic secrets from her privy

Ben Macintyre's book Agent Sonya tells the story of Soviet spy Colonel Ursula Kuczynski Ben Macintyre's book Agent Sonya tells story of  Colonel Ursula Kuczynski  She lived in Oxfordshire hamlet Great Rollright and was known as Mrs Burton  The spy was on active duty and had radio transmitter tuned to Soviet intelligence She fled to East Berlin in 1950 and retired as a spy before dying in 2000 aged 93 Her scones were the envy of the Oxfordshire hamlet of Great Rollright, where the friendly woman known as Mrs Burton lived in a stone farmhouse. In her late 30s, she moved there with her three children and husband Len just after the end of World War II.  She had a faint foreign accent but the locals took no notice and she soon became a stalwart of village life. They were unaware of the massive secret she was hiding — one that even now, 75 years later, had me reeling in amazement at the audacity and ingenuity it involved on her part.  And the unforgivable treache...

Two children who were kidnapped by their househelp in Lagos found in Benin republic

                                         The Lagos state police command have rescued the two children of Mr and Mrs Aneru Mutana of Gbagada Phase 2, Lagos, who were kidnapped by their househelp simply identified as Busayo, on November 26th. A statement from the state police command spokesperson, CSP Chike Oti, says the children were found in the early hours of today December 2nd at a location close to Nigeria Seme border, in Benin Republic. On November 26th, Busola was instructed by Mrs Mutana to go and pick the children from school and take them home as she (Mrs Mutana) wasn't able to do so due to the nature of her job. Unfortunately for Madam, the househelp had carefully planned how to kidnap her children, a 6-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl and executed her wicked plan e...

NDLEA arrests 131 suspects, seizes 263 kg illicit drugs

               The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in Kwara State on Monday said the agency arrested 131 suspects and seized 263.752 kg illicit drugs in 12 months. The Commander of the agency in Kwara State, Ona Ogilegwu, made the disclosure in Ilorin, the state capital at a press conference to mark the 2018 United Nations International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking. The commander, who said that the suspects comprised 115 males and 16 females, added that 18 persons were convicted and committed to prison. Mr Ogilegwu noted that the drugs seized were 203.502kgs of Cannabis Sativa, 876 bottles of Codeine and 60.25 kg of psychotropic substances. He said the theme, “Listen First,’’ was to draw attention to the need to listen to children and youths in order to help them overcome drug-induced stress. “Our routine is to cut the chain of supply of illicit drugs to have...