US market regulators said Monday they for the first time have shut down a digital currency investment scam, charging a company that took millions from investors, "falsely promising" a speedy, 13-fold profit. The Securities and Exchange Commission's new Cyber Unit filed charges against and froze the assets of Dominic Lacroix, a Canadian with a history of securities law violations, and his company PlexCorps.
The company sold securities called PlexCoin to investors in the US and elsewhere, raising $15 million since August, and promising a return of 1,354 percent within 29 days, the SEC said in a statement. These were the first charges filed by the Cyber Unit the SEC created in September to focus on fraudulent initial offerings of digital currency and other crimes.
"This first Cyber Unit case hits all of the characteristics of a full-fledged cyber scam and is exactly the kind of misconduct the unit will be pursuing," the unit's chief Robert Cohen said in a statement. "We acted quickly to protect retail investors from this initial coin offering's false promises."