On April 1, 2024, the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts entered a final judgment against GA Investors, the operator of dozens of fraudulent websites, including GA-Investors.org. Among other things, the judgment orders the defendant to pay more than $1.1 million.
The SEC complaint, filed on May 11, 2023, alleged that GA Investors and its unknown owners offered fraudulently inflated returns — in some cases as high as 61.9% in 24 hours — on investments in various securities. Some of the websites also impersonated legitimate companies.
As alleged in the complaint, investors around the world, including investors in the United States, invested approximately $85,000 in the fraudulent offering of securities on the GA-Investors.org website. Investors were asked to purchase crypto assets from a separate crypto asset trading platform and transfer those crypto assets to a GA Investors wallet address.
Although some investors were able to make small withdrawals from their accounts, when the investors tried to recover larger portions of their investments, the defendants froze the investors’ accounts and misappropriated the investors’ funds.
The final judgment, entered by default, bars GA Investors from future violations of the anti-fraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and rule 10b-5 below. The decision also prohibits GA Investors from participating in future securities offerings. In addition, the judgment orders GA Investors to pay impairment of $70,058, plus prejudgment interest of $5,740 and a civil penalty of $1,116,140.
The Capital Market Commission’s appeal on this matter has now been completed.