The Ontario Securities Commission has filed allegations against Richard James Hogg who is tied to a cryptocurrency token offering which is accused of fraudulently raising CA$51m.
According to the regulator, Hogg participated in this activity between May 2017 and June 2019 and did so without the necessary regulatory prerequisites.
He promoted the Dignity (DIG) token, which was recently named in a complaint by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The 48-year-old Canadian is involved with Cryptobontix Inc and Arbitrade Exchange Inc, which the securities regulator alleges defrauded investors and made false claims to drive interest in the token.
Hogg is believed to be the owner of both companies and a believed to have misused the funds.
After raising the money from investors, Hogg then proceeded to cash out most of the funds, the Ontario Securities Commission alleges, and put them down on more tangible investments, such as real estate and other companies controlled by the defendant.
Hogg did not follow up on any cryptocurrency investment with the money he acquired from the token sale, the exchange says.
Meanwhile in the US, the two companies stand accused of the same fraudulent activities. SEC noted that the companies had misled investors by announcing a bogus “$10bn gold bullion acquisition”.
Cryptocurrency companies in North American are under increased scrutiny. Regulators in Canada and the US have been particularly sensitive to the idea of counteracting fraudulent crypto operations, and the latest string of accusations is a direct response to that.
Elsewhere, Thailand’s securities regulator ordered cryptocurrency lending and staking banned.
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