The Long Island Iced Tea’s (LTEA) – a US-based beverage company – has recently been placed under the scope of the FBI, due to its change into blockchain sparking suspicion of insider trading and securities fraud.

Reported by the Quarts on July 25, the FBI is trying to widen its warrant from another operation, in an attempt to look into the firm’s Whatsapp messages in search for evidence to prove that their suspicions are true, concerning LTEA’s involvement in a potential trading fraud.

Long Island Iced Tea – previously a firm specialised in producing iced tea and lemonade – change its name to Long Blockchain early last year, in a rebranding effort that could result in a 500% surge in the shares. Following its jump from the iced tea business into crypto, LTEA was removed from the Nasdaq Stock Market since it could hit the required level of market capitalization, and was subpoenaed by the US SEC.

The FBI has disclosed their purpose of cracking a smartphone – which was confiscated following the shutdown of the Kelvin Medical case of securities fraud – and getting into the messaging app. Per the document, Oliver Lindsay and Gannon Giguiere, 2 suspects being closely supervised by the FBI, are believed to be involved in LTEA.

Moreover, the FBI is said to have reliable cause to believe that the messages Lindsay received and sent are proof, showing the arguments that “appears to be confidential information regarding LTEA.” Furthermore, the warrant notified that a part in the messages’ content could mention the widely known features of a pump-and-dump scheme.