First Initial Coin Offering Fraud Case Ends in Guilty Plea
- Plea follows judge’s ruling that security law covers ICOs
- Zaslavskiy admits he lied about two cryptocurrency scams
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
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The first fraud prosecution involving initial coin offerings ended in a guilty plea when a New York man admitted lying to about 1,000 investors.
Maksim Zaslavskiy, 39, told a judge he sought to raise money for two ICOs backed by investments in real estate and diamonds that didn’t exist -- a scam the U.S. called an "old-fashioned fraud dressed in a new-fashioned label."