by Linda Straker
- Sun served as Grenada’s WTO Permanent Representative from December 2021
- Recalled after June 2022 General Election
- Document filed on 22 March 2023 in United States District Court Southern District of New York
Justin Sun, Grenada’s immediate former Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), is among 9 people charged with fraud by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Founder of the cryptocurrency Tron, he served from December 2021 and was recalled after the June 2022 General Election.
According to a court document filed on 22 March 2023 in the United States District Court Southern District of New York, Sun and his companies Tron Foundation, BitTorrent Foundation, and Rainberry are accused of having since August 2017 schemed to distribute billions of crypto assets known as Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT) and artificially inflated trading volume.
Besides him and his companies, 8 other USA celebrities were charged in the complaint. They include singers Akon, Austin Mahone, and Ne-Yo, social media personality and boxer Jake Paul, rapper Lil Yachty and porn actress Kendra Lust.
The complaint alleges that Sun and his companies offered and sold TRX and BTT as investments through multiple unregistered “bounty programmes,” which directed interested parties to promote the tokens on social media, join and recruit others to Tron-affiliated Telegram and Discord channels, and create BitTorrent accounts in exchange for TRX and BTT distributions.
“It further alleges that Sun, BitTorrent Foundation, and Rainberry offered and sold BTT in unregistered monthly airdrops to investors, including in the United States, who purchased and held TRX in Tron wallets or on participating crypto asset trading platforms,” said a news release posted on https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-59.
Each of these unregistered offers and sales violated Section 5 of the Securities Act.
The Commission also alleges that Sun violated the antifraud and market manipulation provisions of the federal securities laws by orchestrating a scheme to artificially inflate the apparent trading volume of TRX in the secondary market.
The SEC said Sun’s activity generated tens of millions of dollars of illegal profit at other investors’ expense. He was also accused of concealing payments to celebrities to promote TRX and BTT on social media accounts, misleading the public into thinking they had “unbiased interest in TRX and BTT, and were not merely paid, spokespersons.”
In its complaint, the SEC said Sun sold TRX and BTT as securities, and thus their sale needed to be registered with the agency. It said Sun inflated apparent trading volume in TRX through extensive “wash trading” involving simultaneous or near-simultaneous purchases and sales with no real change in ownership.
“Sun’s wash trading team, working under his direction, engaged in hundreds of thousands of TRX wash trades between accounts that Sun ultimately controlled. None of those trades involved any change in beneficial ownership or had any legitimate economic purpose,” said the complaint.
According to the SEC, from at least April 2018 to February 2019, Sun ordered employees to conduct hundreds of thousands of wash trades between 2 accounts he controlled.
Chris, the folks who have powers to legislate does not legislate themselves.
It should be illegal for non Grenadians to be diplomats and ambassadors.
It’s a real shame that we don’t do any checks on some of the folks representing our little island these days.
We just look at the financial gains and forget to check little things like criminal records so we may have a few murderes walking alongside our citizens at the moment.
Justin Sun, Oleg Firer, Charles Liu, PK Sandhu to name a few. All welcomed into Grenada under the prior Keith Mitchell Government. Why are our standards so low as to allow these people to have diplomatic appointments.
I certainly agree with your statement, Keith Mitchell and his associates have caused our island nation many great harms, from financial mis management on a global scale to his so-called oil and gas finding. I must acknowledge that some good has been done by his administration, but am not sure the good out way the bad, it’s hard to believe that he is still a member of parliament, he should resign from politics.
Now how did a non National end up in such a position. Until we as a people will hold accountable past PMs, confiscate assets , All?. Jail terms even if you are 99 years old, this sellout of our patrons will NEVER END..
It seems like Grenada only attracts fraudsters.