The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States said on Friday that a fraudulent cryptocurrency mining and trading scam had been shut down.
MCC International (also known as Mining Capital Coin), its founders (Luiz Carlos Capuci Jr. and Emerson Souza Pires), and two corporations managed by them were all prosecuted by the SEC. According to the agency, the allegations are “connected to unregistered offerings and fraudulent sales of investment plans known as mining packages to thousands of investors.”
MCC, Capuci, and Pires sold mining packages to 65,535 investors globally since January 2018 and promised daily returns of 1%, paid weekly for up to 52 weeks, according to the securities watchdog.
The complaint also claims that MCC investors were guaranteed bitcoin (BTC) profits at first. However, the defendants “forced the investors to withdraw their deposits in Capital Coin (CPTL), MCC’s own token.”
The DOJ has charged MCC’s founder and CEO.
Capuci, the creator and CEO of MCC, an alleged cryptocurrency mining and investing platform, was also indicted in a global scam, according to the US Department of Justice (DOJ). Cryptocurrency fraud of $62 million.
According to the DOJ, Capuci of Port St. Lucie, Fla., deceived investors about his platform’s cryptocurrency mining and investing program, duping them into investing in MCC’s “mining packages.” He and his accomplices stated that MCC had an international network of cryptocurrency mining devices that could provide investors with “significant income and assured returns.”
The DOJ added that they presented MCC’s own cryptocurrency as a supposedly decentralized autonomous organization that was “stabilized by revenues from the world’s largest cryptocurrency mining operation.”
While they promised to mine cryptocurrency, they did not use investor funds to mine any new cryptocurrency but diverted the funds to cryptocurrency wallets that Capuci operated.
Capuci is also accused of falsely touting and marketing MCC’s purported “trading bots” as an extra investing mechanism to assist investors profit from the bitcoin market, according to the indictment.
According to the DOJ, the MCC founder also reportedly recruited promoters and affiliates to promote MCC in a pyramid scheme, concealing the location and control of fraud proceeds through several foreign-based cryptocurrency exchanges. Capuci is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit international money laundering, according to the Department of Justice. He faces a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison if convicted on all charge counts.
