Quote from: jseverson on Today at 03:25:24 AM

Quote from: Theb on March 07, 2021, 09:10:34 PM

So what really got my attention is the authorities have considered pumping and dumping as fraud now. Pumping and dumping in itself isn't the fraud but the lies and deception the person is doing is what considered the fraud here. McAfee for example has a hidden agenda while he bought those crypto early he then Tweets misleading information and sometimes pure lies just to influence the market which he really do as he knows he has a large following in Twitter.

Yep, here's one general definition:

Quote from: https://www.justia.com/criminal/offenses/white-collar-crimes/fraud/

A deliberate scheme to obtain financial or similar gain by using false statements, misrepresentations, concealment of important information, or deceptive conduct is known as fraud.

That seems pretty spot on for what he did. Actually proving that on court is a wholly different story, but even if that doesn't stick, he has openly admitted to accepting money from ICOs (after the fact) in exchange for promoting them on twitter.

And the good and bad news about this one is literally anyone who tweets that is also an influencer can be subject to such criminal charges without them knowing, the bad news here is normal people like us might get caught on the wrong side of the law. I think we all know by now that influential people in the crypto industry are using their huge following for their own personal gain or at least with biases on their own so since one of the big fish is caught and charged now they should at least now think twice of what they are typing before they publish it online. Since the authorities have now acted on one of the most known individual in the crypto industry it is only a matter of time for them to start looking for some other fish to fry.