- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken action against SafeMoon LLC, its creator Kyle Nagy, SafeMoon US LLC, and the company’s CEO John Karony, along with CTO Thomas Smith.
- David Hirsch, head of the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit (CACU) at the SEC, claims that decentralized finance alleges to provide transparency and predictable outcomes.
- According to the SEC’s allegations, Nagy promised investors that funds were securely locked for SafeMoon Token and that no one, including the defendants, could withdraw them.
The SEC has filed a lawsuit against SafeMoon, a project that was once popular: Over $200 million stolen from SafeMoon!
SEC Files Lawsuit Against SafeMoon Project
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken legal action against SafeMoon LLC, its creator Kyle Nagy, SafeMoon US LLC, and the company’s CEO John Karony, and CTO Thomas Smith. The SEC accuses them of orchestrating a massive fraud through an unregistered crypto asset sale called SafeMoon.
According to the SEC’s allegations, the defendants promised to “safely take it to the moon” for the token but instead siphoned over $200 million worth of crypto assets from the project and misused investor funds for personal purposes, wiping out billions of dollars in market value rather than generating profit.
David Hirsch, head of the SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit (CACU), said, “Decentralized finance alleges to provide transparency and predictable outcomes, but unregistered offerings leave out the disclosures and responsibility that the law requires and draw fraudsters like Kyle Nagy who exploit these vulnerabilities to enrich themselves at others’ expense.”
The SEC alleges that Nagy promised investors that funds were securely locked to market SafeMoon Token and that no one, including the defendants, could withdraw them. However, as alleged, substantial portions of the liquidity pool were never locked, and the defendants misappropriated millions of dollars to buy luxury homes and other items.
Jorge G. Tenreiro, Deputy Director of CACU, said, “We recommend that individuals remain extremely cautious in this space, which has all too often been exploited by fraudsters promising astronomical profits by leveraging the popularity of crypto assets.”
SEC’s SafeMoon Complaint
According to the SEC’s complaint, SafeMoon’s price increased by over 55,000% between March 12 and April 20, 2021, before plummeting nearly 50% on April 20, 2021 when the public learned, as SafeMoon boldly claimed, that SafeMoon’s liquidity pool had not been locked. After this drop, Karony and Smith used the ill-gotten assets to purchase SafeMoon to increase its market value and manipulate the market. Karony also used an account on a trading platform that he opened to trade SafeMoon to create the appearance of market activity, a practice known as wash trading.
The SEC’s complaint charges the defendants with violating the registration and anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The investigation is led by John Lucas and was assisted by John Crimmins, Pamela Sawhney, Sejal Bhakta, and John Marino. The litigation will be led by Dean M. Conway and Oren Gleich, with oversight from James Connor. Deborah A. Tarasevich, Mr. Tenreiro, and Mr. Hirsch supervised the investigation.
