$5.6m crypto scam: Andrade blames SEC for misleading court

• Rowland Andrade’s company, NAC Foundation (NAC) continues to challenge SEC lawsuit
• Andrade has claimed there is no case
• The defendant accused the Securities and Exchange Committee (SEC) of having ‘mislead the court’ regarding patents

Rowland Marcus Andrade, accused of selling unregistered securities in the form of AML Bitcoin, has now appealed to a San Francisco judge to dismiss the June lawsuit. Andrade and notorious associate, Abramoff, were brought to court for defrauding investors in a digital token offering worth $5.6m between 2016-2017. As reported, the crypto scam involved convincing investors that NAC’s digital tokens would overcome Bitcoin’s security concerns regarding money laundering and anonymity.

Legal representatives for Andrade’s company, the NAC Foundation, argue that NAC had patents for the anti-money laundering technology, despite SEC attorneys claiming this technology was not yet developed. According to court documents from 20^th October, Andrade has now accused the SEC of ‘purposefully having ‘mislead the court,’ knowing that NAC held these patents.

Is Andrade’s position consistent over the crypto scam?

This development is in line with Andrade’s consistent denials of a crypto scam. The defendant has repeatedly denied tokens were represented as investment contracts and that investors were aware of the risks. AML Bitcoin, according to Andrade, was a mode of exchange, ‘not a pooled interest in any business entity or common enterprise,’ something investors were made aware of in written agreements.

NAC believes key aspects of the Supreme Court’s ‘Howey Test’ – which determines if certain transactions constitute an ‘investment contract’ and can be considered securities – were not met. Thus, the AML Bitcoins cannot be considered securities.

Andrade’s associate, the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, was imprisoned for four years for corruption 2006-2010 after his dealings with SunCruz Casinos. His separate SEC suit was unexpectedly settled out of court in July of this year after Abramoff agreed to plead guilty for criminal conspiracy.