The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued Geosyn Mining and its owners, claiming they misled and misappropriated its investors’ funds.
Through service agreements offered as securities between November 2021 and December 2022, Geosyn, its CEO Caleb Joseph Ward, and former operating head Jeremy George McNutt allegedly deceived about 64 investors, according to the SEC’s April 24 lawsuit filed in a federal court in Fort Worth, Texas.
The agreements to purchase and operate bitcoin miners on behalf of clients for a fee were “falsely claimed,” according to the SEC. Geosyn had deals with electricity suppliers to supply cheap energy, but in practice, the prices were “as high as 40-50% above” what it had quoted to clients.
The SEC said Ward and McNutt also misled investors regarding Geosyn’s business practices. It claimed to have never brought most of the 1,400 mining rigs it signed into service agreements to acquire online and only purchased 400.
The suit said that although Geosyn’s agreements allowed investors to select which cryptocurrency to mine, the company rejected requests to mine anything other than Bitcoin.
The company produced “bogus documents” with “fabricated mining production rates and profits.” It paid investors BTC to “believe that their mining machines were operational and profitable when they were not,” according to the SEC.
The SEC claimed it handed investors about $354,500 worth of bitcoins while making $320,000 from mining the currency. The agency said McNutt bought Bitcoin to make up the deficit and gave it to Ward to distribute to investors.
In one instance, McNutt is said to have used the company’s credit card for a $20,000 “Las Vegas nightclub wedding celebration” for Ward and a $49,000 family trip to Disney World.
The SEC also alleges that Ward and McNutt misappropriated about $1.2 million in investor funds for personal use, including meals, nightclubs, vacations, guns, watches, and legal fees.
It said that during a June 2022 cryptocurrency conference, Ward and McNutt utilized an additional $22,000 of investor monies for a breathalyzer and other costs associated with McNutt’s and a Geosyn employee’s purported separate arrests for drunk driving.
The SEC stated Geosyn was “unable to make a profit because it did not have the favorable electricity contracts that Defendants touted to investors” and had less than $1,900 in the bank by the end of 2022 as fresh investor money dried up.
It said that in October 2022, McNutt resigned and gave up ownership. The SEC claimed Ward allegedly reported McNutt for embezzlement to the authorities “without disclosing his misappropriations.”
Early in 2023, with Geosyn in “dire financial straits,” Ward emailed investors “IOU” notes for the Bitcoin they owed. The SEC claims it never filed for bankruptcy, as promised in June.
The regulator requested that the three be penalized, that a permanent injunction be issued, and that the claimed misappropriation be repaid.
