The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday charged Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur and Grenada’s immediate former Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation, Justin Sun with fraud and accused eight celebrities including actress Lindsay Lohan and rapper Soulja Boy with illegally promoting his crypto assets.
The 32-year-old position as Grenada’s ambassador came to an end following the June 23 general election, which put the New National Party out of office.
The party was ousted by the National Democratic Congress.
It was in the early months of the now nine-month-old NDC administration that all ambassadors were recalled.
Sun and his companies Tron Foundation, BitTorrent Foundation, and Rainberry were accused of having schemed to distribute billions of crypto assets known as Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT) and artificially inflated trading volume since August 2017.
With the appointment of Sun as Grenada’s Ambassador to the WTO in December 2021, the Government of Grenada said it expectedhim to use his contacts to promote trade, investment, and development opportunities for the country.
Sun was also expected to support the development of human resources, infrastructure, and information and communication technology for Grenada. He was also expected to conduct himself in a manner that promotes Grenada’s image at all times.
According to the SEC report, a few of the eight celebrities named agreed to pay a total of US$400,000 in disgorgement, interest, and penalties to settle the charges.
