The SEC filed charges in December 2025 against purported crypto asset trading platforms Morocoin Tech Corp., Berge Blockchain Technology Co., and Cirkor Inc., along with four affiliated "investment clubs" — AI Wealth Inc., Lane Wealth Inc., AI Investment Education Foundation Ltd., and Zenith Asset Tech Foundation — alleging the network defrauded retail investors of more than $14 million through what the agency describes as an elaborate, multi-stage investment confidence scam.DOCUMENTED
- The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, names three purported trading platforms and four investment clubs as defendants — seven named entities in total.
- According to the SEC, no actual trading ever occurred on any of the platforms, which the complaint characterizes as entirely fake, along with the "Security Token Offerings" they marketed to investors as issued by legitimate businesses.
- Victims were recruited via social media advertisements, then moved into private WhatsApp groups where fraudsters allegedly posed as financial professionals promoting AI-generated investment tips to build a false sense of expertise and trust.
- When investors attempted to withdraw their supposed returns, the SEC alleges they were met with demands for advance fees purportedly required to release the funds — a further extraction from victims already attempting to exit the scheme.
- At least $14 million was allegedly misappropriated and funneled overseas through a web of bank accounts and crypto asset wallets designed to frustrate tracing.
The recruitment funnel
The mechanism described in the complaint follows a specific, deliberate sequence, each stage of which serves a distinct psychological function in the fraud's overall design. A public-facing social media advertisement establishes initial contact with a broad pool of potential victims at minimal cost to the operators. A private group chat then builds trust and manufactures social proof among a curated set of victims who have already expressed interest, creating an environment where skepticism is socially discouraged. An AI-branded credential lends technical credibility to the pitch, exploiting the same unverifiable-expertise dynamic seen in the separate Privvy Investments case. Finally, an advance-fee demand extracts additional funds from victims already attempting to withdraw and exit the scheme, converting the moment of a victim's greatest suspicion into one final extraction opportunity.REVIEWED
Our complaint alleges a multi-step fraud that attracted victims with ads on social media, built victims' trust in group chats where fraudsters posed as financial professionals and promised profits from AI-generated investment tips, then convinced victims to put their money into fake crypto asset trading platforms where it was misappropriated.
A documented pattern of prior warnings
Reporting on the case notes that several affected states, including Washington and Arkansas, had separately received consumer complaints about some of the named companies before the SEC's action was filed, indicating the scheme had already generated victim complaints at the state regulatory level well before federal charges were brought. Following the SEC's action, the companies' websites and broader online presence were largely removed — a common pattern in fraud cases where the operators' primary strategy following exposure is disappearance rather than a legal defense of the underlying conduct.DOCUMENTED
The case is explicitly framed by SEC officials as illustrating a broader current concern: U.S. officials have separately moved to take more coordinated action against overseas-based scam operations more generally, including a multi-department strike force targeting scam compounds in Southeast Asia estimated to steal roughly $10 billion from Americans annually — a figure that situates this particular $14 million case as a comparatively small fraction of a much larger, ongoing transnational fraud economy.
Sources behind this report
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