SEC charges Unicoin and three top executives for $100 million securities fraud

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged New York-based Unicoin Inc. and three of its senior officers with fraud. The trio misled investors while selling “rights certificates” linked to an unissued Unicoin token.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, May 20, names chief executive and board chairman Alex Konanykhin, former president Silvina Moschini, and former chief investment officer Alex Dominguez.

According to the SEC, the defendants inflated asset values and wrongly implied federal approval to boost sales.

“We allege that Unicoin and its executives exploited thousands of investors with fictitious promises that its tokens, when issued, would be backed by real-world assets including an international portfolio of valuable real estate holdings,” said Mark Cave, associate director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.

“But as we allege, the real estate assets were worth a mere fraction of what the company claimed, and the majority of the company’s sales of rights certificates were illusory,” he added.

The agency says Unicoin placed ads in airports, thousands of New York City taxis, on television, and on social media, portraying the certificates as a safe “next-generation” digital investment.

More than 5,000 people bought in, believing each certificate would later convert one-for-one into Unicoin tokens.

Unicoin CEO sold 37.9 million of his own certificates

Investigators highlight three key misstatements. First, executives said the future tokens were “asset-backed” by billions of dollars in property and stakes in pre-IPO firms, even though company assets were only a fraction of that figure.

Second, they boasted of selling more than $3 billion in certificates, while actual proceeds never exceeded $110 million. Third, they described the certificates and tokens as “SEC-registered” or “U.S. registered,” though no registration had been filed.

The complaint also accuses Konanykhin and the company of running unregistered offerings. Regulators say the chief executive sold more than 37.9 million of his own rights certificates, often at a discount.

Unicoin, Konanykhin, Moschini, and Dominguez are charged with violating antifraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

The SEC asked the court for “permanent injunctive relief, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains with prejudgment interest, and civil penalties ” and orders barring the trio from serving as officers or directors of public companies. The action also seeks civil fines against the company itself.

The suit further names general counsel Richard Devlin, alleging he repeated similar false claims in private placement memoranda. Without admitting or denying the allegations, Devlin has agreed to a settlement that imposes a permanent injunction and a $37,500 civil penalty.

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