Craig Grant receives BitConnect phone call from SEC
Top BitConnect promoter Craig Grant has confirmed he received a phone call from the SEC on September 26th.
Having spoken to two SEC agents for “about twenty-five minutes”, Grant reflects it
[0:36] was the most pleasant conversation I’ve had about the BitConnect situation.
You know the way they talked to me and the way they sounded, it was like y’know, I felt like they understood what I was going through.
Grant is believed to have made millions via promotion and investment in the BitConnect Ponzi scheme.
Since BitConnect collapsed in January, Grant has been laying low and living off stolen investor funds.
Despite this, Grant maintains he “lost a lot” in BitConnect – which is disingenuous because he later admits that he is “better off financially” as a result of BitConnect.
As to the specifics of what Grant and the SEC agents talked about;
[2:27] The thing that they’re interested in the most, after the conversation they emailed me a list of things that they would like for me to provide… but on the phone, the thing that they said I need to focus on is any conversations I had with Glenn.
“Glenn” refers to Glenn Arcaro, the top US BitConnect investor and net-winner.
In the weeks leading up to BitConnect’s collapse, Arcaro went on the run and hasn’t been seen or head in public since.
In earlier videos Grant claims Arcaro is travelling on multiple passports. He is believed to be hiding out in Asia and/or Dubai.
From what Grant reveals, the SEC are going hard on gathering evidence and not taking no for answer.
Services of Grant’s targeted include Facebook and WhatsApp, both of which accounts he claims he thought he no longer had access to.
Since the conversation, Grant claims to have retrieved “all of (his) Facebook chats with Glenn”.
The chats were made into a video, which Grant then provided with the SEC.
[4:56] I looked at those chats and I saw, whereas… I didn’t see any evil. I didn’t see any intentions to… to um, y’know.
It was all just promoters trying to promote as best they could.
Astonishingly and even after talking to the SEC, Grant appears to still be unaware (or in denial) that promotion of unregistered securities is illegal in the US.
In what can only be described as a delusional rant, later in his video Grant pleads with the SEC to release “positive information” about BitConnect.
This, Grant explains, will ‘give the BitConnect developers a chance to come back and give the value back to the BCC token‘.
In addition to communications with Arcaro, the SEC requested Grant provide them with financial specifics.
[6:23] They asked for all my bank account records, all my wallet addresses for all the cryptocurrency I have. I sent them everything.
All my (BitConnect) promotion videos… everything. I sent them everything.
Likely in order to verify what Grant has sent them and further discuss BitConnect and his role in it, another phonecall has been scheduled for Friday.
Grant’s SEC phonecall comes hot on the heels of fellow promoter Trevon James SEC’s subpoena appearance.
To what extent James provided the SEC with information on Grant (and by extension Glenn Arcaro) is unclear.
Looking forward, it’s practically a certainty that at some point the SEC will file a civil case related to BitConnect.
We’ll continue to track developments and keep you updated.
Update 29th September 2018 – Craig Grant has made public the Facebook chat logs with Glenn Arcaro and Trevon James he provided to the SEC.
Update 5th October 2018 – Sometime in the last twenty-four hours Craig Grant deleted his phone call with the SEC video.
Did Grant promote BitConnect – yep
Did he accept money for doing so – yep
Did he obtain legitimate legal advice before he accepted money and can he produce it?
Was the deal he worked under the same as was offered to general members?
If he’s charged, he has no defence.
What, you’re saying Grant’s feels about evil don’t count for anything?
No they don’t.
What WOULD worth paying money to see, however, would be watching him try to use the “I didn’t feel” defense in court.
something just rubs me that grant made the call to the SEC to cut a deal and rolling over.
Aaaaaaand it’s gone.