The Securities and Exchange Commission said on 1 August it charged 11 individuals with creating and promoting a fraudulent platform that operated as a global crypto pyramid and Ponzi scheme.

The platform in question, Forsage, raised more than $300m from millions of individual investors worldwide since it was launched in January 2020. The Forsage’s four founders — Vladimir Okhotnikov, Jane Doe (also known as Lola Ferrari), Mikhail Sergeev, and Sergey Maslakov — were among those charged and were last living in Russia, the Republic of Georgia and Indonesia, according to the SEC complaint.