Campaign IPOs of coins (ICO) fall under the legislation in the field of securities, at least the criminal aspect. Such a verdict is rendered Tuesday, September 11, the Brooklyn district judge Raymond Deary, according to Reuters.
In particular, the judge upheld the prosecution of a US citizen Maxim Zaslavsky, who was arrested in November last year on charges of defrauding investors of cryptocurrency and conducting two fraudulent ICO.
Zaslavsky has collected at least $300 thousand. He sold tokens REcoin, which, according to him, was secured by real estate, as well as coins, Diamond, allegedly provided the real diamond business. Prosecutors, however, disagree with him and emphasize that the tokens were not even released.
In March, lawyers for the accused have submitted the petition in which asked to drop the charges because the case is linked to currencies, not securities, and do not fall under the securities act.
However, on Tuesday, September 11, Deary rejected the petition and said that the application of the Federal law on securities must be “flexible”. He noted that the Commission on securities and exchange Commission (SEC) also considers some cryptocurrency securities.
Note that in June, the SEC acknowledged that bitcoin and Ethereum are not securities.
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