SEC Gets Another Order To Freeze PlexCoin ICO Assets

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has acquired another emergency court order from a federal court in Brooklyn, New York to freeze accounts connected to Dominic Lacroix, the founder of PlexCoin whose assets were frozen when its ICO was banned following a fraud investigation in December 2017.

Revealing the court order in a communique announced on June 20, the SEC announced that the order for an additional asset freeze was demanded by Lacroix’s actions after the initial freeze, which included using discrete account too withdraw and share amounts of cryptocurrency acquired from investors in the PlexCoin ICO.

Canadian citizen Lacroix has an attractive history of run-ins with financial regulators. In 2013, he pleaded guilty to six counts of “illegal placement, an illegal practice, and transmission of false or misleading information” in Quebec, causing in a charge of $25,000 CAD.

Four years later, it was reported that Lacroix and other individuals involved in the PlexCoin ICO became victim to Quebec’s Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF), the key financial regulator in the Canadian province. During the same month, the Quebec Superior Court held him in contempt of court given that he disobeyed an earlier judgment that banned him from soliciting investors or holding an ICO in the province.

Afterward, in December 2017, the SEC fined him with flouting anti-fraud regulation concerning the PlexCoin ICO, mentioning promises made in ICO marketing material of 1,354 percent profits on PlexCoin holdings in less than a month. In addition to his partner Sabrina Paradis-Royer and his company PlexCorps, and was also fined with violating SEC ‘Reg D’ registration requirements for securities offerings.

During that time, it is approximated that he had stolen PlexCoin ICO investor for as much as $15 million, and so the SEC was able to apply for an emergency asset freeze against PlexCorps, the company behind the ICO while the investigation went on.

Termed as a “recidivist securities law violator” by the SEC at the time, the commission tried injunctions, disgorgement, and penalties to make sure that Lacroix could never again face an ICO or serve in any capacity where he would handle investor money in a public company.

A recent statement from Lacroix known as a “recidivist securities law violator” according to the SEC which definitely has an idea of his plans.

A piece of the statement reads:

“The SEC’s request for an additional asset freeze, filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, alleges that, since the original freeze in December, Lacroix had been using secret accounts, including an account in his brother’s name but which he controlled, to improperly dissipate for personal use digital assets obtained from investors during the PlexCoin Initial Coin Offering (ICO)…The complaint seeks permanent injunctions, disgorgement plus interest, and penalties.  For Lacroix, the SEC also seeks an officer-and-director bar and a bar from offering digital securities against Lacroix and Paradis-Royer.”