The Italian securities regulator has slapped two crypto projects with suspensions for allegedly offering fraudulent crypto investment schemes. The temporary bans will reportedly last 90 days as was reported in an official statement on the regulator’s website yesterday.
The regulator, known as the Italian companies and exchange commission, or the, Nazionale per le Societa e la Borsa (CONSOB), is the Italian equivalent of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
The two projects that have been suspended by the CONSOB are; Bitsurge Token and Green energy certificates. These two are allegedly scam projects from Avalon life, a company based in the European Union. The bans are effective as from 12th December all through to March 2019.
The scam project Bitsurge was allegedly promoted on the website bitsurge.io and also on the Facebook page dubbed “Bitsurge token”. As described in the resolution, the company was offering investors “token contracts” with monthly returns from 6 to 13 percent for capital amounts ranging from $1000 to $25,000.
The second scheme dubbed Green earth certificates was promoted reportedly through the Facebook page “Progetto Crypto Green Earth” and offered “Green Earth Certificates” in order to protect rainforests from deforestation by purchasing forest areas via Blockchain. The alleged scam intended to provide a 6 percent reward to all crypto investments situated in forest areas such as Costa Rica.
These projects drew the attention of both the CONSOB and the Malta financial services who jointly issued a press release about another suspected scam in the form of a crypto exchange known as Originalcrypto.
The CONSOB had been at it for several months and had issued cease and desist orders against three crypto related firms for allegedly offering unapproved investment services.
The fact that the two suspended projects i.e “Green earth certificates” and “Bitsurge” both had placed ads on Facebook, highlights one of the reasons the social media giant had put a ban on crypto ads earlier this year before eventually lifting the ban.
