Bitcoin Daily: Telegram Consents To $18.5M SEC Penalty; ‘AML Bitcoin’ Founder Charged With Money Laundering

Telegram consented to a $18.5 million penalty in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) settlement over an unsuccessful token offering, CoinDesk reported.

The company will also tell the agency about any intentions for any kind of cryptocurrency issuance in the three years to come.

Last year, the SEC sued Telegram following a $1.7 billion raise to back the creation of its Telegram One Network (TON) blockchain initiative. The SEC sought to stop Telegram and its subsidiary from issuing tokens, and a federal court took the agency’s side. At first, Telegram appealed, but the firm ended up stopping its attempts.

Telegram will also have to pay a $1.22 billion disgorgement that is reduced by $1.19 billion by the funds that some investors provided as a loan and the “termination amounts” in investor contracts, per a court filing. It will have as long as four years to repay investors and 30 days to pay the agency.

In other news, the individual behind the cryptocurrency project that purportedly had anti-money laundering features was brought forward on wire fraud and money laundering charges by the U.S. Department of Justice, CoinDesk reported.

The founder of the NAC Foundation was alleged to have taken in funds for tokens representing “AML bitcoin” that would eventually be changed into the purported cryptocurrency.

The individual allegedly “misappropriated money he obtained through the sale of AML Bitcoin tokens” and “orchestrated and approved a false ‘rejection campaign’” for a television advertisement, per a court filing.

The individual, along with the NAC Foundation and associates, also allegedly “made public statements and statements to potential purchasers of AML Bitcoin tokens that misrepresented the state of the development of the technology and the viability and timeline for the final release of the functional AML Bitcoin cryptocurrency,” per the filing.

The individual, along with the NAC Foundation and associates, also allegedly “made statements that falsely stated and implied that the NAC Foundation had reached or was about to finalize agreements with various government agencies.”

The founder allegedly brought in approximately $5.6 million, per an SEC complaint cited by the outlet.