Ivars Auzins
U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 26279 / March 28, 2025
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Auzins, No. 21 Civ. 6693 (E.D.N.Y. filed Dec. 3, 2021)
SEC Obtains Final Judgment Against Latvian Citizen Charged with Crypto Asset Fraud
On February 7, 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission obtained a final judgment on consent against Latvian national Ivars Auzins. In December 2021, Auzins was charged with defrauding hundreds of retail investors in connection with two separate fraudulent offerings.
According to the SEC’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Auzins defrauded U.S. and foreign investors through the Denaro initial coin offering of digital assets from January-March 2018, and through Innovamine, an online entity that purportedly offered a cloud mining and digital asset trading platform from April-July 2019. Auzins allegedly used fictitious names, fictitious legal entities, and fraudulent profiles to perpetrate his schemes, and misappropriated nearly all of the investor funds that were raised.
In December 2021, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York brought parallel criminal charges against Auzins for his role in the fraudulent schemes in United States v. Auzins, 21 Cr. 357 (E.D.N.Y.) (ERK). Auzins pled guilty and was sentenced to time served (31 months).
Auzins consented to entry of the final judgment, which enjoins Auzins from violating the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and the registration provisions of Section 5 of the Securities Act. The judgment also orders: (1) disgorgement, including prejudgment interest, of $412,201.15 against Auzins, which was deemed satisfied by the order of forfeiture entered in the parallel criminal proceeding against him; (2) bars him from acting as an officer or director of a public company for ten years; and (3) prohibits him from participating in any offering of a crypto asset being offered and sold as a security for ten years.
The SEC’s litigation was conducted by Todd Brody and Jon Daniels and was supervised by Thomas P. Smith, Jr., all of the SEC’s New York Regional Office.