The “Don’t ever play yourself“, music mogul DJ Khaled and pro-boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday for their involvement in an alleged cryptocurrency scam.
After receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars, the duo allegedly failed to disclose payments they received for promoting initial coin offerings, according to the SEC’s settlement announcement.
Both Khaled and Mayweather settled with the SEC and agreed not to promote any securities, even digital ones, for two years and three years, respectively. They also agreed to give back the money they’d received to the SEC and pay penalties with interest.
Mayweather failed to disclose that he’d received $300,000 from three different ICO issuers, including $100,000 from Centra Tech. Khaled failed to disclose a payment of $50,000 from the same company.
Centra has separately been charged by the SEC, which alleged that its ICO was fraudulent.
Centra could not immediately be reached for comment.
This is the first SEC case pursuing violations over coin offerings, a relatively new phenomenon that has attracted billions of dollars of investment in new cryptocurrencies—often with little to back them up.
The two celebrities even touted the company on their social-media accounts. Khaled called the company a “game changer” while Mayweather’s promotions included a message to his Twitter followers that Centra’s ICO “starts in a few hours. Get yours before they sell out, I got mine.”