SEC Issues a Special Order to Suspend Activity of Scam ICO that Raised $21 mln

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) received a court order to charge Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services (TBIS) with fraud, Forbes reported on Tuesday, May 29. The blockchain technology company allegedly broke laws imposed by federal securities in a $21 million crypto trading scam.

“This ICO was based on a social media marketing blitz that allegedly deceived investors with purely fictional claims of business prospects. Having filed multiple cases involving allegedly fraudulent ICOs, we again encourage investors to be especially cautious when considering these as investments,” Chief Robert A. Cohen of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Cyber Unit said.

Michael Alan Stollery (also known as Michael Stollaire), the President of Titanium, got an accusation in making false and misleading claims about company’s business affairs with a number of well-known financial market players including the Federal Reserve, PayPal, Verizon, Boeing, The Walt Disney Company. Stollaire is considered to fabricate the testimonials shown on the website of the fintech company and to promote fake statements of investment opportunities like those early Intel and Google had.

A court order to halt a fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO) scheme initially named Titanium BAR Token was sent to the SEC on May 29. It claimed the digital currency scam had collected nearly $21 million from domestic and foreign investors. According to the SEC, these funds could be gathered in the period from November 2017 to January 2018. The SEC’s complaint was filed on May 22 stating that TBIS gained traders’ trust with a help of fabricated data and testimonials.

Following the SEC’s requirement, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California froze emergency assets and imposed the appointment of a receiver for the President of TBIS Michael Alan Stollery aka Michael Stollaire. He also fell under suspicion of spending a part of the funds, raised in cryptocurrency sale, on paying bills for his condominium in Hawaii.