The Securities Division of Arizona last month hit a former LPL Financial broker, Lisa Boisselle, and her firm, Wealthwise, with a cease and desist order for alleged violations of a variety of state securities laws linked to almost $1.4 million of sales of two cryptocurrency funds.
Boisselle was registered with LPL Financial in Scottsdale, Ariz., from 2018 to 2022, according to her BrokerCheck profile. Wealthwise is no longer registered as an RIA.
Beginning in 2021, Boisselle solicited clients to invest in two cryptocurrency asset-related programs, NovaTech and HyperFund, also known as HyperVerse, according to the cease and desist order, which the Arizona Securities Division filed on August 5.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last year alleged both NovaTech and HyperFund were operated as fraudulent investment schemes, according to the cease and desist order.
From November 2021 to April 2023, Boisselle solicited almost at least $1.4 million from at least 16 clients for investments in NovaTech and HyperFund. And despite not being licensed or registered with the Arizona Corporation Commission, she continued to solicit investors to invest in new opportunities, according to the cease and desist order.
Boisselle could not be reached Friday to comment. A spokesperson for LPL did not return a call to comment.
The SEC in January 2024 charged Xue Lee, also known as Sam Lee, and Brenda Chunga, also called Bitcoin Beautee, for their involvement in a fraudulent crypto asset pyramid scheme known as HyperFund that raised more than $1.7 billion from investors worldwide.
According to the SEC’s complaint, from June 2020 through early 2022, Lee and Chunga promoted HyperFund “membership” packages, which they claimed guaranteed investors high returns, including from HyperFund’s supposed crypto asset mining operations and associations with a Fortune 500 company.
And the SEC last December said it charged Cynthia and Eddy Petion, along with their company, NovaTech Ltd., for operating a fraudulent scheme that raised more than $650 million in crypto assets from more than 200,000 investors worldwide, including many in the Haitian-American community.
According to the SEC’s complaint, the Petions operated NovaTech as a multi-level marketing and crypto asset investment program from 2019 through 2023. They lured investors by claiming NovaTech would invest their funds on crypto asset and foreign exchange markets.
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