Unicoin, Inc. and Four Senior Executives Charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with Defrauding Thousands of Investors

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Unicoin, Inc. and four senior figures—including CEO Alex Konanykhin and former president Silvina Moschini—with defrauding thousands of investors

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Unicoin, Inc. and four senior figures—including CEO Alex Konanykhin and former president Silvina Moschini—with defrauding thousands of investors in a crypto offering that raised over $100 million using false and misleading statements about the nature and value of its products.

According to the SEC’s May 20 complaint, Unicoin marketed what it described as “rights certificates” to over 5,000 investors globally. These certificates purportedly gave investors future access to Unicoin tokens—digital assets that the company claimed would be backed by billions of dollars in real-world assets. The SEC alleges that the underlying assets were never worth more than a small fraction of what the company promised.

Konanykhin sold over 37.9m of his certificates for "better pricing"

Mark Cave, Associate Director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, commented, “We allege that Unicoin and its executives exploited thousands of investors with fictitious promises that its tokens, when issued, would be backed by real-world assets including an international portfolio of valuable real estate holdings. But as we allege, the real estate assets were worth a mere fraction of what the company claimed, and the majority of the company’s sales of rights certificates were illusory. Unicoin’s most senior executives are alleged to have perpetuated the fraud, and today’s action seeks accountability for their conduct.”

Unicoin’s aggressive promotional campaign included advertisements on television, social media, airport displays, and thousands of New York City taxis. The SEC alleges that these marketing materials misled the public by describing the Unicoin token as stable, asset-backed, and compliant with U.S. regulatory standards. Investors were led to believe that the tokens were registered with the SEC, when they were not.

The complaint states that Unicoin falsely claimed to have sold more than $3 billion in rights certificates. In reality, the SEC alleges the company raised no more than $110 million. Konanykhin, the company’s CEO, allegedly sold over 37.9 million of his personal certificates in an effort to offer “better pricing” and access to investors the company had otherwise disqualified to avoid jeopardizing a registration exemption.

Alongside Konanykhin and Moschini, the SEC charged former Chief Investment Officer Alex Dominguez with fraud. All three are also facing officer-and-director bars. The SEC also charged Unicoin and Konanykhin with conducting unregistered securities offerings. Konanykhin is additionally charged as a control person over Unicoin’s violations.

The company’s general counsel, Richard Devlin, was also named in the complaint for negligently making false statements in private placement memoranda related to both the rights certificates and the firm’s common stock. Devlin has agreed to settle the charges without admitting or denying the allegations. He will pay a $37,500 civil penalty and accept a permanent injunction.

The SEC is seeking permanent injunctive relief, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains with interest, civil penalties, and bars preventing Konanykhin, Moschini, and Dominguez from serving as officers or directors of any public company.

The SEC’s investigation was led by Adam B. Gottlieb, Jason Schall, and Joss Berteaud, in the Centers for Economic Analysis unit of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement’s Defiance and Impact Cases Section, and supervised by W. Bradley Ney and Mark Cave. Litigation will be handled by Russell Feldman and Adam Gottlieb, supervised by Jack Kaufman.

The Commission’s action underscores heightened regulatory scrutiny of crypto-based investment offerings, particularly those targeting retail investors with claims of asset backing and regulatory compliance.