On Tuesday, September 29, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed two separate complaints in federal court in Manhattan accusing four entities of running online investment schemes that took at least $15 million from hundreds of retail investors, many of them in the United States.
The cases, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, name Cryptoaiml Ltd. and Cryptoaiml Capital Foundation in one complaint, and TSAI Pro Ltd. and TSAI Capital Foundation in the other. The agency said the entities are likely run by people based overseas.
The SEC alleges the Cryptoaiml defendants misappropriated more than $12.5 million, while the TSAI defendants took more than $2.8 million. The agency described both operations as investment confidence scams, in which perpetrators cultivate online relationships with victims before stealing their money.
“Although the methods used to bilk innocent investors in these fraudulent investment scams varied, the goal was the same,” said David Woodcock, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. He said the schemes promised outsized returns, claimed legitimate SEC-regulated status, and then stole investors’ money.
According to the Cryptoaiml complaint, the scheme ran from at least August 2024 through March 2025. The SEC alleges the defendants created WhatsApp group chats, posed as investment professionals, and distributed what they described as AI-generated trading “signals” that supposedly generated large profits.
Investors were directed to open accounts on a trading platform that the SEC says was fake, and were persuaded to transfer crypto assets to it. In some instances, the SEC alleges, the defendants formed an investment adviser-client relationship with investors, who signed management agreements represented as legitimate.
The SEC says the defendants also claimed to be certified by regulators, including the SEC, and displayed on their website a screenshot of a falsified Form D purportedly filed by Cryptoaiml Ltd. The complaint alleges no trading ever took place and that the profits shown to investors were fictitious. Investors who tried to withdraw money were told their accounts were frozen until they paid advance fees, which the SEC says were fraudulent.
The complaint against the TSAI entities covers September 2024 to March 2025. The SEC alleges the defendants told investors, through a website, WhatsApp chats and a public Facebook presence, that they could earn guaranteed profits by depositing funds on an online platform to rent bots programmed with artificial intelligence to trade on their behalf.
Investors were also told they could earn money by recruiting others into the AI-trading bot program, according to the complaint.
The SEC alleges the defendants falsely claimed TSAI was fully regulated by the agency and posted a bogus SEC certificate on their website that referenced a falsified Form D filed by TSAI Pro Ltd. The agency says the entire program was fraudulent: no AI trading bots existed, and deposited funds were never used to generate returns for investors.
The SEC said the Forms D submitted by Cryptoaiml Ltd. and TSAI Pro Ltd. have been removed from the Commission’s website.
The agency’s Office of Investor Education and Assistance has previously issued alerts warning that fraudsters may use popular group chats to find victims or falsely claim to be registered with the SEC. The SEC urged investors to use Investor.gov to check the background of anyone offering or selling them an investment.
Woodcock encouraged the public to report suspected schemes through the SEC’s online tip portal as they occur.
Source: SEC
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