Skip to main content

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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hurricane Hits Texas, One Person Reported Dead

Hurricane Harvey hit Texas as a Category 4 storm on Friday, battering the coast with 130-mph winds and torrential rain. It was the strongest hurricane to hit the United States in more than a decade leaving a massive destruction, loss of electricity, wrecked buildings and has so far killed at least one person. Scroll down to see more pictures of the incident:
Post a Comment
Read more

Kenyan Law Court dismisses case of man seeking compensation after his wife eloped with another man from hospital

  A lawsuit filed by a man seeking to be compensated by St Mary's Mission Hospital in Kenya for allowing his wife to leave the hospital with another man after giving birth, has been struck out by a law court.    The appellant had sued the St. Mary's Mission hospital at Kakamega law courts in 2020 seeking general damages from the facility on grounds that the hospital had discharged his wife and allowed her to leave with another man. After delivering and at the time of discharge, the wife of the appellant claimed he was the baby's father.   The court of appeal judges Patrick Kiage, Mumbi Ngugi and Francis Tuiyott sitting at the Kisumu Court of Appeal, empathized with the man, but disagreed that he (the appellant) be compensated by the hospital for not detaining his wife.  They upheld the lower court's judgement which added that there's no remedy that lies in the law for such grievances.   Kiage said;   "I agree that if a man takes the woman he loves to t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nigerian Military hands over 23 rescued children to UNICEF through Borno State

The Nigerian military has handed over 23 children who were formerly associated with Boko Haram insurgents, to UNICEF through the Borno State government.  The children were picked up during various military operations around the north-east region. Aged between 17 and 10 years, the boys and girls confessed to the military that they have been assisting the Boko Haram insurgents either as fighters or domestic helps in the camps. The Theatre Commander of a military counterinsurgency force, Abba Dikko, said the 23 children were released in line with Nigeria military’s commitment to the observance of human rights. He observed that the children and other vulnerable persons were victims who faced with the highly unstable circumstances induced by the conflict would have had little option but to fall under the thrall of the insurgents.  “We were able to identify this category of people, especially the women, the aged and children to whom it behooves our sense of duty and res...
Post a Comment
Read more