The former CEO of bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network, Alexander Mashinsky, has been arrested and is facing a string of charges for allegedly misleading investors and manipulating the price of the company’s crypto token, the Department of Justice announced on July 13.
Mr. Mashinsky was arrested Thursday and charged with securities fraud, commodities fraud, and wire fraud for defrauding customers and misleading them about core aspects of the company he founded, including Celsius’s “success, profitability, and the nature of the investments Celsius made using customer funds,” prosecutors said.
Additionally, Mr. Mashinsky and Roni Cohen-Pavon, Celsius’s former chief revenue officer, are charged with conspiracy, securities fraud, market manipulation, and wire fraud for “illicitly manipulating the price of CEL, Celsius’s proprietary crypto token, all while secretly selling their own CEL tokens at artificially inflated prices.”…