- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed charges against brothers Jonathan Adam and Tanner Adam over a $60 million Ponzi scheme.
- The SEC said it obtained emergency relief to freeze the siblings’ assets.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it has charged two brothers in connection with a $60 million Ponzi scheme that affected more than 80 investors across the United States.
According to the SEC’s press release on August 26, Jonathan Adam and Tanner Adam lured investors by promising 13.5% monthly returns on their investments. Read more: SEC charged Abra for offering unregistered crypto securities
Defendants deceived investors
The brothers also misled investors by claiming Jonathan had built a crypto “bot” that could identify arbitrage trading opportunities on cryptocurrency trading platforms.
They told investors that their projects would place funds into lending pools and that “in the event of a global market downturn, investors’ funds would be safe.” In reality, the operations were a fraud targeting unsuspecting investors.
The SEC further alleges that Jonathan concealed prior findings of securities fraud from investors. Jonathan and Tanner used investor funds to pay the purported monthly returns and diverted millions of dollars to personal expenses, including down payments and installments on a $30 million Miami condominium and $480,000 for luxury cars.
On Monday, the SEC announced it had secured emergency relief enabling it to freeze the brothers’ assets. The regulator’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, also names the siblings’ companies GCZ Global and Triten Financial Group for violations of the federal securities anti-fraud laws.
According to the SEC, the brothers did not oppose the asset freeze. The agency is seeking permanent injunctions against Jonathan and Tanner, disgorgement of all ill-gotten gains, and civil penalties.