SEC Sues Linqto Founder and Former Executive for Fraudulent Activities

According to ME News, on October 11 (UTC+8), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against William Sarris, founder of the investment platform Linqto, and former executive Joseph Endoso. According to the SEC’s complaint, between 2021 and 2024 at least, a subsidiary of Linqto sold more than $430 million in shares of special purpose vehicles (SPVs) holding equity in private companies to retail investors. During this period, Sarris and Endoso are alleged to have misled and defrauded investors by: (i) falsely claiming that Linqto’s pricing reflected current market conditions or was below market price, when in fact nearly all of its products were priced above fair value; (ii) claiming that certain securities were “sold out” or “fully subscribed,” when Linqto still had additional shares available for sale; (iii) asserting that certain prices on the Linqto platform were set automatically by algorithms and dynamically adjusted based on investor demand, when in reality Linqto personnel continued to manually set prices; and (iv) telling investors that Linqto complied with federal securities laws, despite its legal counsel informing them that Linqto’s operations violated federal securities regulations. The complaint also alleges that Sarris and Endoso operated an unregistered investment company and illegally sold securities to non-accredited investors through Linqto’s subsidiaries (involving unregistered transactions). (Source: PANews)