The SEC has filed a lawsuit against the owner, director, and two US-based promoters of Trade Coin Club.
It is alleged that defendants Jonathan Tetreault, Keleionalani Akana Taylor, Joff Paradise, and Dover Torres Braga stole close to $300 million from customers.
A Ponzi scam called Trade Coin Club was examined on BehindMLM in 2017.
The research and conclusions of BehindMLM are supported five years later by the SEC’s news release from the TCC on November 4;
A fraudulent cryptocurrency Ponzi scam called Trade Coin Club gathered more than 82,000 bitcoin, worth $295 million at the time, from more than 100,000 investors throughout the globe, including at least 2,500 investors in the US.
A special note should be made of serial Ponzi marketer J. Ryan Conley, who said he “support(ed) the mission at TCC and we have excellent plans to feed the hungry” at the time.
The truth is that Trade Coin Club, like many MLM Ponzi scams, did nothing but enrich its owners and top marketers.
Returning to the SEC’s case, the following information is provided about the TCC defendants:
Owner of Trade Coin Club, Dover Torres Braga, emigrated to Brazil from Florida (also promoted the WCM777 Ponzi scheme)Joff Paradise, a US citizen who left Nevada for Panama and is the director of Trade Coin Club (also tied to AirBit Club and AI Trade Ponzi schemes)
The leader of Trade Coin Club’s US-based earnings, Keleionalani Taylor, led Trade Coin Club Team Mega (lived in Washington, moved to Hawaii)
The promoter and earner for the Trade Coin Club located in Massachusetts are Jonathan Tetreault.
A classic MLM crypto Ponzi scheme was Trade Coin Club. Trading was the primary MLM Ponzi gimmick employed to scam investors five years ago.
(Trade Coin Club) was promoted as a way to make money off of the purported trading actions of the company’s purported crypto asset trading bot.
Trade Coin Club behaved in a way that was typical of a Ponzi scheme.
“Trade by Trade,” a recently established crypto asset trading business, shared an office and personnel with Braga.
Braga gave the impression that the two businesses were one merged entity and that Trade by Trade carried out Trade Coin Club’s cryptocurrency asset trading operations.
For investor withdrawals or redemptions, Trade Coin Club has no external financing source available, such as trading gains.
Investor deposits were used only to pay investor withdrawals.
Specifically, other investor contributions supported 99.96% of investors’ bitcoin withdrawals.
Late in 2016, Trade Coin Club was established.
Trade Coin Club was promoted by Paradise as a passive investment that was ideal for people with little money and no prior trading knowledge.
Paradise said in a recording from December 20, 2016, “[s]o what we’ve done is taken a guy who doesn’t know anything about trading, the mom who has three kids and is on social security or welfare and she has a little bit of – she has some bitcoin and maybe somebody gave her… we’ve figured out how to let her do that and be able to make money every day and not lose a dime.”
Paradise made fraudulent claims about Trade Coin Club is “licensed” and “insured” in several recordings.
The Ponzi scam collapsed around October 2017.
Investor deposits at Trade Coin Club reached their high in June 2017, and by September 2017, investor withdrawals began to outpace inflows.
Trade Coin Club started the TCoin exit scam in November 2017.
US investors were prohibited throughout 2018, continuing this trend.
Trade Coin Club indicated that it was leaving the country and canceling accounts for Americans sometime in or around January 2018. A message headed “WE HAVE THE REGRET TO ANNOUNCE THAT WE WILL NO LONGER BE ACCEPTING U.S. INDIVIDUALS” was sent to investors in the Back Office.
Trade Coin Club carried out its TCoin exit scam in February 2018;
Trade Coin Club said in February 2018 that it will stop paying withdrawals in bitcoin and would instead ask investors to withdraw money in bitcoin.
Dover Braga cashed out in May 2018, which led to the demise of Trade Coin Club.
On May 25–26, 2018, Braga announced that he will be leaving Trade Coin Club during a gathering in Dubai. Many investors were thus unable to withdraw any bitcoin or TCoin or access their Trade Coin Club Back Office accounts.
Joff Paradise (right) made his money in July, two months later.
Paradise announced his departure from Trade Coin Club on July 11th, 2018.
False claims about “mums on social security” and “feeding the destitute” are refuted.
Before Trade Coin Club’s demise, many of its investors were unable to withdraw their cryptocurrency holdings, losing much or all of their initial investment.
Braga and Paradise suppressed internal dissent to undermine BehindMLM’s evaluation of Trade Coin Club and deter investors from asking troubling questions.
While Trade Coin Club was in existence, prospective investors expressed worries that it may be a Ponzi scam.
Knowing about these worries, Braga and Paradise took action to prevent people from voicing them in the Trade Coin Club-related online chat rooms and social media platforms.
For instance, Paradise sent a separate reply to a different promoter on September 19, 2017, in response to a post alleging that TCC was a scam:
“Dude, could you just handle that crowd?” and “Please remove that member from that group.”
Braga made an effort to clear the internet of any damaging material about Trade Coin Club and his participation.
Late in 2017, Braga employed a search engine optimization expert to reduce critical comments about Trade Coin Club and its partners and to enhance Braga’s internet reputation.
Additionally, Braga sued Google in Brazil for allegedly publishing web articles accusing Braga of operating the Trade Coin Club Ponzi scam.
Even though I don’t talk about it often, the fraudsters we report on frequently threaten and sue BehindMLM.
This may be a challenging situation to traverse in the example of Trade Coin Club, where there was a five-year delay between BehindMLM being on the front lines and regulatory action being done.
Of the 82,000 investors Trade Coin Club sought;
At least 8396 BTC (about $55 million) were stolen by Dover Braga.
At least 238.97 BTC were taken by Joff Paradise.
158.78 BTC were taken by Jonathan Tetreault.
185.55 BTC were taken by Keleionalani Taylor.
The SEC has accused Braga, Paradise, and Taylor of violating the Securities and Exchange Act for their roles in operating and/or assisting in operating an MLM Ponzi scheme that defrauded consumers of more than 82,000 BTC.
Separate claims have been made against Jonathan Tetreault (right). He is facing two claims of relief for breaches of the Securities Act and Exchange Act.
The two Trade Coin Club lawsuits brought by the SEC were submitted on November 3. It’s assumed that Taylor and Tetreault are working together.
Both TCC cases are being tracked by BehindMLM. We will update you.
6th November 2022 update From MLM cryptocurrency Ponzi scams, Keleionalani Taylor seems to have transitioned to politics.
In Hawaii, Taylor was vying for governor of O’ahu as of July 2022:
August saw the Hawaii primary elections. According to a summary, Taylor earned 12.2% of the vote.
In any case, I would presume that Taylor’s political ambitions are over now that he is a defendant in a federal securities fraud prosecution.
