The US SEC has reportedly pressed charges against 2 New York citizens, along with his 2 establishments, for fraudulently operating an unlicensed ICO from late 2017 to 2018.

Specifically, the US SEC has submitted an official legal complaint on August 12, against Reginald Middleton, and his 2 firms, Veritaseum Inc and Veritaseum LLC, located in New York and Delaware successively.

The US department also requested the U.S. District Court to take immediate action, blocking all assets associated with the mentioned men.

The SEC claimed that an amount of nearly $14.8 million has been raised via an ICO funding round, and has subsequently accused the 2 men of providing false, non-existing material in the presentation to investors.

Additionally, around $8 million of investors’ funds invested in the ICO is still in the defendants’ custody, and thus requested for emergency freeze on their assets.

The department further requested the court to issue an order, aims to stop the defendants from making any interference with the SEC’s access ability to the data associated with the case, along with letting it take expedited discovery and escrow crypto assets through a 3rd party, together with numerous other requests.

Per the filing, the firm make transactions using a 30:1 ratio Ether-pegged token, dubbed VERI, that runs on the Ethereum Blockchain. The defendants claimed the token to be utility, and it is redeemable for numerous beneficial causes such as consulting and advisory services and purportedly unlimited access to research.