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SEC's new Cyber Unit presses charges for first time

Chris Hamblin, Editor, London, 8 December 2017

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The US Securities and Exchange Commission has charged PlexCorps and its owner with illegally marketing and selling securities called PlexCoin on the internet to thousands of investors, raising US$15 million from them.

Plexcorps' initial coin offering or ICO, which the SEC maintains is bogus and has now halted, claimed that if all 400 million 'PlexCoin' tokens for sale were sold, the early investors would reap outlandish rewards of 1,354% in 29 days or less (the supposed period of the PlexCoin ICO). The SEC refers to its CEO, Dominic Lacroix, as a "recidivist Quebec securities law violator" and has also charged his partner, Sabrina Paradis-Royer, in connection with the scheme.

The SEC's complaint, submitted in a federal court in the eastern district of New York, alleges that Paradis-Royer and PlexCorps committed securities fraud in breach of s17(a) Securities Act 1933 and s10(b) Securities Exchange Act 1934 (and Rule lOb-5 that the SEC issued under that Act); and that Lacroix and PlexCorps engaged in the unlawful sale of (and offer to sell) securities in breach of ss5(a) and 5(c) Securities Act. In addition, it alleges that Lacroix aided and abetted PlexCorps' misdeeds. A tribunal in Quebec had already ordered them all not to engage in the activity that is the subject of the SEC's charges. The SEC says that the ICO for the PlexCoin tokens was an illegal offering of securities because there was no registration statement filed or in effect during its offer and sale and no applicable exemption from registration. It was a general solicitation on the Internet and ensnared investors from all over the world.

Plexcorps promised returns stemming from: (i) the appreciation in value of the PlexCoin token through investments that it wanted to make with the proceeds of the PlexCoin ICO, aided by its team of supposed experts; (ii) the distribution to investors of profits from the PlexCorps enterprise; and (iii) the appreciation in value of the PlexCoin tokens as a result of the efforts of PlexCorps' "market maintenance" team, which included listing the token on digital asset exchanges. The PlexCoin token currently trades under the symbol PXN.

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