The post SEC Scores $1.1M Win as Crypto Scammer Keith Crews Dodges Court appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
It’s not often that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announces a straightforward victory in the crypto courts these days, but June 3 delivered that. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Crews. case. Source: pacermonitor In a case that reads like a cautionary tale for both investors and scammers, a federal court in Georgia issued a $1.1 million judgment against Keith Crews, the alleged mastermind behind the “Stemy Coin†crypto scheme, without Crews ever setting foot in the courtroom. The saga began in August last year, 2023, when the SEC charged Crews with masterminding a scheme in his companies, Four Square Biz and Stem Biotech. From October 2019 to May 2021, Crews is said to have collected at least $800,000 from about 200 investors, some of whom were recruited through personal connections within African-American and church networks. The sales pitch? An alleged crypto asset security known as “Stemy Coin,†one Crews claimed was backed by advanced stem cell technology, gold, and a legitimate network of partners and labs. But as the SEC probe subsequently revealed, there was no stem cell technology, gold, or partnerships. “Crews and his entities possessed no existing stem cell technology, products, or operations; there was no partnership with the purported entities,†the agency stated in its complaint. Investors were left with promises and a token that was, at its core, nothing more than an electronic chimera. The court action was as one-sided as the scheme. Crews never responded to the lawsuit or appeared in court, and Judge Tiffany Johnson entered a default judgment. The penalty: over $1.1 million, including $530,000 in disgorged profits, nearly $51,000 in prejudgment interest, and a $530,000 civil penalty. More notably, Crews is now permanently barred from defrauding investors in the future, an uncommon but emphatic move in today’s environment of diminished…