ICO News: Charges mount against Floyd Mayweather-endorsed ICO

Centra

The Centra ICO first grabbed headlines a couple of months back, mostly because it was publicly endorsed by retired boxing world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr.

The project billed itself as a debit card to allow cryptocurrency traders to quickly and easily exchange their Bitcoins and Ether for U.S. dollars and spend them at stores. However, the ICO turned out to be fraudulent.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) unveiled the charges against another co-founder just weeks after two other founders, Sohrab Sharma and Robert Farkas, were arrested and charged.

Today, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York stated that Ray Trapani has been arrested and charged in connection with the company's token sale, which, as mentioned, was promoted by boxing champ Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

“While investing in virtual currencies is legal, lying to deceive investors is not”

Trapani got charged with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami said, in a statement: "As alleged, Raymond Trapani conspired with his co-defendants to lure investors with false claims about their product and about relationships they had with credible financial institutions.

“While investing in virtual currencies is legal, lying to deceive investors is not." 

According to the Justice Department, the SEC filed separate charges against Trapani, the details of which are yet to be released, at time of writing.