Justin Sun Grenada’s immediate former Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is among nine people charged with fraud by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The Tron founder and his companies Tron Foundation, BitTorrent Foundation and Rainberry were accused of having schemed since August 2017 to distribute billions of crypto assets known as Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT), and artificially inflated trading volume.
The 32-year-old Chinese-born Grenadian cryptocurrency entrepreneur had served as the WTO representative from December 2021 but was recalled when the National Democratic Congress won the general election in June 2022.
According to a court document filed on Wednesday in the US District Court Southern District of New York, besides Sun and his companies, eight other celebrities were charged in the complaint. Singers Akon, Austin Mahone, and Ne-Yo; rappers Soulja Boy and Lil Yachty; actress Lindsay Lohan; social media personality and boxer Jake Paul; and porn actress Kendra Lust are accused of illegally promoting Sun’s crypto assets.
All but Soulja Boy and Mahone agreed to settle, without admitting wrongdoing, and together paid more than US$400,000.
The complaint alleges that Sun and his companies offered and sold TRX and BTT as investments through multiple unregistered “bounty programmes,” which directed interested parties to promote the tokens on social media, join and recruit others to Tron-affiliated Telegram and Discord channels, and create BitTorrent accounts in exchange for TRX and BTT distributions.
It further alleges that Sun, BitTorrent Foundation, and Rainberry offered and sold BTT in unregistered monthly airdrops to investors, including in the United States, who purchased and held TRX in Tron wallets or on participating crypto asset trading platforms.
The SEC said each of these unregistered offers and sales violated Section 5 of the Securities Act.
