Rapping might be easy for T.I. But what about defending himself against a lawsuit worth $5 million? The answer will soon be found out, as multiple plaintiffs are taking him to court for the failure of the FLIK token, the Blast reports.
T.I. is specifically accused of a pump and dump scheme which involved 25 investors. The latter contributed a total of $1.3 million in “now worthless securities called FLiK Tokens” once heavily advertised both by the rapper and his business partner Ryan Felton. The plaintiffs note that together they created an impression of “a valuable liquid investment.”
What happened next sounds very much like a scam. According to the plaintiffs, T.I. took their money, waited until the prices slumped and disappeared. The story even has a twist: following the disappearance, Felton allegedly established a new firm stating he has nothing to do whatsoever with FLIK.
To remind, FLIK kicked off last September and had seen the encouragement from U.S. actor Kevin Hart and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban. Felton played a key role, in this case, creating “fake online posts on behalf of Mark Cuban in order to manipulate the value of FLiK Tokens.”
Its peak was in October when it traded at 21 cents. Currently, it is worth as little as $0.00057660.
This is not the first time that celebrities are getting involved in crypto. Earlier this year Mr. Lonely Heart a.k.a Convict Akon has announced his plan to launch his very own Akoin. However, he has not been accused of any scam attempts so far.
Besides, fraud and pump and dump is no big news in the crypto world. Recently Oyster Protocol (PRL) Founder Bruno Block transferred directorship of PRL smart contract to himself and proceeded to exit scam the PRL project.
Before that, the CEO of the U.S. crypto firm GAW Miners, which has ceased its existence, was sentenced to 21 months in prison for carrying out a massive investor fraud. To place the cherry on top, albeit a negative one, an advanced botnet of at least 15,000 bots involved in crypto giveaways has been disclosed this year on Twitter.
