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Russian ICO Hit With Cease And Desist Order After Impersonating Bank
The securities watchdog of Dakota has recently issued a cease and desist order against a company based in Russia that has launched an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that tried to impersonate Liechtenstein’s Union Bank AG. Not only is the company accused of impersonating the bank, it also promotes unregistered securities that are potentially fraudulent, the securities watchdog affirmed.
This company has claimed that it was the world’s first security token backed by a fully licensed bank, which was not the truth. The Commissioner of the North Dakota Securities Department has affirmed that Union Bank Payment Coin has directly copied these elements from the Union Bank site without having their permission nor they knowing about it.
According to the Commissioner, they copied the style, wording, images and even the leadership information. Because of this, it is believed that the ICO was an attempt to defraud investors and that the whole thing was probably a scam.
While Union Bank is a company based in Liechtenstein, UBPC is located in Russia and registered to a single individual, which corroborates on the suspicions that the company is only a front for a scam.
The securities watchdog of North Dakota has decided to send a cease and desist order against the company because “ICOs are sold over the internet and pitched heavily through social media”, this way, people from the state can be exposed to the scam independently on the fact that it is not based there.
While it is certainly weird for non-Americans to see the regulators of a regional state going against companies at the world side of the world, this is pretty standard practice in the U. S. Internet has made us all more connected, so it is pretty normal that some companies use this to target investors from other countries.
Before now, this state has used cease and desist orders against at least three other ICOs: Crystal Token, Life Cross Coin and Advertiza Holdings.
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