Crypto▼ Bearish
SEC Sues Florida Man Over $22M Crypto Mining Ponzi Scheme
The SEC sued Zan Shaikh and his company for a crypto mining fraud that raised $22M. Only 13% went to mining; the rest funded marketing and personal spending. A partial settlement has been reached.
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The SEC sued a Florida man and his company over a crypto mining scheme that raised about $22 million from hundreds of investors, the regulator said Tuesday.
Zan Shaikh, 28, of Miami, and his firm Bright Vision Distribution LLC, which did business as Mining Automatic, allegedly promised guaranteed monthly returns from digital asset mining operations between June 2023 and May 2025.
Only about 13% of the money went to actual mining costs, the SEC's complaint said. The rest went to marketing campaigns to recruit more investors and to Shaikh's personal spending. Early investors got paid partly from new money, not from mining profits – a structure the regulator described as a classic Ponzi arrangement.