Bulletins

Two siblings were charged in a global $124 million crypto fraud operation

The DOJ and SEC say John and Tina Barksdale defrauded thousands in a global operation.

Crypto coins

DOJ said man who duped thousands in Ormeus crypto scam has been arrested.

Image: Protocol

Two siblings have been charged with federal securities laws violations for their involvement in a $124 million crypto fraud operation, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday.

John and Tina Barksdale are accused of defrauding thousands of retail investors who bought or invested in the Ormeus Coin cryptocurrency, the SEC said. The Justice Department also announced that John Barksdale has been arrested overseas and faces conspiracy and fraud charges for selling and promoting a cryptocurrency “through false representations.” A DOJ spokesperson declined to say where he was arrested.

The siblings used misleading marketing and outright lies in selling their cryptocurrency, the federal agencies said. Barksdale “operated like a traveling salesman and peddled lies, overstatements and misrepresentations” of the cryptocurrency, DOJ Special Agent Ricky J. Patel said in a statement.

He said Barksdale misled investors who were told that the crypto company was secured by a $250 million crypto mining operation “which would have been one of the largest such operations in the world.” The DOJ said Barksdale’s company even ran an ad on a jumbotron in Times Square in Manhattan making that claim.

Benjamin Pimentel

Benjamin Pimentel ( @benpimentel) covers crypto and fintech from San Francisco. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He can be reached at bpimentel@protocol.com or via Google Voice at (925) 307-9342.

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Bulletins