The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a subpoena in a district court of California to get the records of an alleged USD 100 million “pump and dump” Initial Coin Offering (ICO) by Jeffre James and his trust Saint James Holding and Investment Company.
According to the SEC, the subpoena was filed under an application on 5 October at the US District Court for the Central District of California against a company named Saint James Holding and Investment Company Trust and its owner James.
The move comes after the SEC suspended trading in an associated penny stock firm Cherubim Interests back in February. According to the SEC, a penny stock firm Cherubim was undergoing a USD 100 million financial commitment to launch an ICO for the St James Trust.
According to the filing:
“After Cherubim’s stock price and trading volume increased on this news, certain individuals associated with the company may have ‘dumped’ their overvalued Cherubim stock for significant profits.”
ICOs are currently banned by the SEC in the United States. The federal commission also provided a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) from its archive regarding a financial commitment for a so-called Self Sustaining International Communities Coin (SJT).
The SEC also disclosed that the reason behind its suspension of trading of Cherubim was that the commission was doubting the accuracy of the firm’s disclosures. Cherubim is also reportedly being probed for acquiring assets back in January.
The Commission only decided to go to court after its own subpoenas to both St James Trust and James went unanswered despite serving them personally and extending their deadlines multiple times.
The court order, if issued will require St James Trust to disclose its records to the SEC for its fact-finding mission regarding the operation of the company and come to a conclusion. No charges have yet been filed by the SEC.
The SEC is clamping down hard on cryptocurrency-related projects in the country, especially ICOs. By the end of last month, SEC had also filed charges against an international securities dealer offering Bitcoin-funded security swaps in violation of federal security laws. It has also outlawed almost all exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that were tabled for approval.
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