SEC: Fake 'AI Trading' WhatsApp Groups Took $15M With False Filings on Its Own Website

On 17 September 2024 someone created a WhatsApp group chat called "VIP-Wealthy Affiliate Group". A month later its star arrived: a man using the name of a real financial adviser at Raymond James, the American brokerage. On 29 October he posted a crypto trade under a row of red alarm emojis, credited artificial intelligence with spotting it, and minutes later said he had made 60% on it. His "assistant" offered to help anyone open an account. None of it was real. The adviser's name had been stolen, and the man posting under it was an impersonator.

On 29 September 2026 the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the regulator that polices the stock market, sued the companies behind that chat and a second operation. In two complaints filed in federal court in Manhattan, the SEC says Cryptoaiml Ltd. and Cryptoaiml Capital Foundation took about $12.5 million from more than 300 investors, and TSAI Pro Ltd. and TSAI Capital Foundation took about $2.8 million from roughly 1,715 more. Both ran from late summer 2024 to March 2025. Both sold "AI trading" that did not exist. And both, the SEC says, pointed victims to paperwork sitting on the SEC's own website.

Nobody knows who owns them. Each complaint says the companies are controlled by "persons unknown", and the SEC said they are likely run by people overseas. The SEC called them "investment confidence scams", where the fraudsters build an online relationship before taking the money. David Woodcock, the SEC's enforcement director, said the methods varied but "the goal was the same": promise outsized returns, claim to be regulated by the SEC, then steal the money.

The fake filing on a real website

The trick that made both schemes look safe was a Form D. A Form D is a short notice a company sends the SEC when it raises money privately, without the full registration a public share sale needs. The company types it in itself and it appears on EDGAR, the SEC's public filing database. SEC staff do not check or approve it.

Cryptoaiml Capital Foundation, a Colorado nonprofit, registered on 20 August 2024 as a money services business, the category for firms that send or exchange money for customers, with FinCEN, the US Treasury's financial crimes office. That listing is self-filed too. Cryptoaiml Ltd. was incorporated in New York on 28 August, and on 3 September it filed its Form D, claiming revenue of over $100 million and $10 million raised. It was signed by a director called "James Peat", who, the SEC says, does not appear to exist. The notarisation of his signature was forged, according to the complaint. The whole set-up took 14 days. The website, cryptoaiml.vip, had a tab marked "SEC" that showed the filing on sec.gov and a tab marked "MSB" that showed the FinCEN entry.

©CMZ chart. Data: SEC complaints

TSAI did the same. TSAI Capital Foundation registered with FinCEN on 5 August 2024. TSAI Pro filed its Form D on 23 September, also claiming over $100 million in revenue, with a director named "Benjamin Douglas Cook" who had no link to the company and an address at 250 Greenwich Street, a 52-storey tower in lower Manhattan, with no floor or suite. The SEC could not find TSAI there. Its website, techstarvoip.com, went further and displayed a "certificate" supposedly issued by the SEC. The SEC issues no such certificates.

How the Cryptoaiml con worked, step by step

The group chat came first. Cryptoaiml set up a string of WhatsApp groups and filled them with impersonators of real people. Besides the Raymond James adviser, a group called "Citadel AI Community" was led by someone posing as the president of Citadel Securities, the big Wall Street trading firm, using a biography copied from Citadel's website. His "assistant" said she was a Harvard graduate from Miami. Neither firm had any involvement, the SEC says.

Then came the pitch. The fake advisers said their AI signals were 98% accurate, and one assistant claimed AI trading could return up to 1,600% in 60 days. Fake members posted fake praise. "Barbara" said her shares had fallen but the group trades covered her losses. The steady message was that the stock market was slow and risky and crypto was where the money was.

Next was the app. Members were told to open an account on the Cryptoaiml platform and send crypto to a wallet address, the crypto version of a bank account number. The site looked like a real exchange, an online broker for crypto, with live prices, a trading menu and a balance that rose with every signal followed. No trade ever happened. The money often left within days, sometimes within 24 hours. The SEC traced $11,998,455 in crypto from more than 300 victims into four main wallets before it moved abroad.

Then the upsell. A "VIP" programme promised better signals for bigger deposits, and one assistant said Citadel Securities would bear up to 90% of any losses. At least two clients signed investment management agreements. One named Raymond James as manager and sent clients to the SEC's real adviser lookup site, where the real adviser's genuine record came up. The other promised to charge no fee as long as profits reached 1,200% a month.

Last came the trap. Investors who asked for their money were told their accounts were frozen, and a "Crypto AI Service Center" on WhatsApp asked for fees to unlock them. One investor was told in December 2024 that the SEC itself was investigating his account. People with no crypto left were told to wire dollars to the US bank accounts of firms described as "market makers" or suppliers: Flavyo Trading Corporation, Neurotech IT Solutions, INTY Endless and a business called Enjoy Time. One man was coached to tell his bank that Flavyo was a "cooperative supplier". Four victims sent $513,577 this way. The SEC says it went on to accounts of two companies formed in the United Arab Emirates and of two Chinese companies, then moved again. Some investors had already sold shares, employee share options or 401(k) savings, the American workplace pension, to invest, and some sold more to pay the fees.

TSAI: rent a robot, recruit a friend

TSAI sold something simpler. Investors "rented" an AI trading robot. The cheapest cost $100 and promised $10 a day for two days, with the $100 returned. The dearest cost $500,000 and promised $17,500 a day for 360 days, $6.3 million in all. Payment was in bitcoin, ether or the digital dollars USDT and USDC, and about $2.7 million of the deposits came in bitcoin.

It was also a pyramid scheme, the SEC says. Members earned 5% of what their direct recruits spent and 3% and 2% from the next two levels down, and climbed ranks from S0 to S7, with monthly "salaries" promised to leaders. A "Profit Box" offered at least 0.35% a day on reinvested winnings. When people tried to cash out, a "human resources" contact accused some of "illegal arbitrage", and others were told to pay a 25% "tax": $1,312.50 on one investor's $5,250 balance. In the week of 17 March 2025 a pop-up asked every user for a "verification" payment of $280 to $12,000 because the site had supposedly been hacked. By 23 March the site said only that it was under maintenance.

The two schemes may be closer than they look. Both complaints list the same two wallet addresses, one on Bitcoin and one on Ethereum, among those that received investors' money. The SEC does not say whether one group ran both.

WhatsApp, the court case and the warning signs

WhatsApp is not accused of anything. It was the meeting room, not the con, and TSAI also used a public Facebook group. Meta, which owns both, said in August 2025 that WhatsApp had removed 6.8 million accounts linked to scam centres in six months.

The SEC charged Cryptoaiml with fraud under the Securities Exchange Act and the Investment Advisers Act, and TSAI with fraud and selling unregistered securities. It wants court orders banning the conduct, repayment of the money with interest, and penalties. It also removed both Form D filings from its website. These are allegations, and no court has ruled. By 20 October the court records showed summonses issued and a first hearing ordered in the TSAI case, and no person had been named.

The warning signs repeat across both cases. Real advisers at big firms do not run trading tips in WhatsApp groups that strangers are invited into. A Form D, a FinCEN listing or an "SEC certificate" proves nothing. Any request to pay a fee, tax or deposit before withdrawing money is the scam's last stage, not a hurdle.