Thu, March 28

US Siblings Charged With $124M Crypto Fraud

Bitcoin News
  • Both of the Barksdale siblings are American citizens.
  • Only John visited roadshows and conferences.

At least 12 thousand “retail investors out of more than $124 million” were allegedly defrauded by John Albert Loar Barksdale and his sister JonAtina (Tina) Barksdale, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on March 8. The Department of Justice (DOJ) arrested John and charged him with wire fraud, securities fraud, and conspiracy while he ran overseas.

Both of the Barksdale siblings are American citizens. According to Reuters, John, 41, lived in Thailand while JonAtina, 45, was in Hong Kong. In 2017, there were two ICOs for the Ormeus Coin (ORME) token. However, it is stated in the SEC complaint, “the size, value, and purported profitability of Ormeus Coin’s cryptocurrency mining assets.” were lied about by the Barksdales.

Fake Project Vault Wallet

A BEP-20 token and an ERC-20 token, ORME, may be found on the Ethereum (ETH) and BNB Chain blockchains. Even though both siblings worked on social media postings and videos to promote the initiative, only John visited roadshows and conferences. “Snake-oil salesman” is Melissa Hodgman of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, described John.

Alleged misrepresentations concerning the Ormeus mining operation are the basis for SEC and DOJ fraud accusations against Barksdale. Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), and Dash (DASH) mining began in November 2017, according to the Oremus Coin website. They stated that ORME had injected $250 million and was producing $5 million a month in income from the mining operation behind the project.

As of November, the project’s vault wallet was faked to have a value of more than $190 million. However, a second website is said to have been used to display the value of a wallet that was unlinked. As a result, project wallets were “worth less than $500,000” in actual money for the SEC.

Content writer by profession. A crypto lover and has passion for writing. Follows the developments of digital currency right from its launch, years ago.