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According to a new release from New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, Eran Eyal – former CEO of Springleap and incumbent CEO of Shopin – has formally been charged with fraudulently soliciting investors, making false representations, and for computer crimes during his tenure with the former company.
Underwood’s statement outlines that Eyal allegedly stole as much as $600,000 USD from investors by ‘fraudulently soliciting investors’ to ‘purchase convertible notes through false representations of his company.’
In a statement to the press, Underwood outlined that “As we allege, this massive securities fraud scheme bilked investors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars… Defrauding New Yorkers through false representations and fabrications about a business will not be tolerated by my office – and we’ll continue to do what it takes to root out and prosecute securities fraud.”
Springleap – a global crowdsourcing company – has now been alleged to have made false representations about its management team and pool of professionals, and fabricated the existence of several senior staff members and an Advisory Board.
Further, Underwood’s office cites that Springleap’s community of over 180,000 creative professionals was fabricated by means of hiring a ‘freelance computer hacker to web-scrape computer data from a legitimate online portfolio website in order to obtain pedigree information for creative professionals to falsely inflate his existing list’.
In cryptocurrency circles, Eyal serves as the CEO and founder of Shopin – a platform touting itself as the “world’s first decentralized shopper profile built on the blockchain.”
Shopin concluded its private pre-sale on January 27th this year, reportedly raising as much as $10 million USD. The platform claims to have raked in $32.5 million USD through its public pre-sale on March 30th, and apparently concluded its token generation event with a total of $42.5 million USD.
Eyal faces no charges for his activities or role with Shopin.
As Underwood’s office outlines, Eyal presently faces three counts of Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, one count of Grand Larceny in the Third Degree, one count of Unlawful Duplication of Computer Related Material in the First Degree, one count of Criminal Possession of Computer Related Material), one count of Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree, and four counts of Securities Fraud under the Martin Act. If convicted, Eyal would face between five to fifteen years in prison.
Eyal has not made public comment since the announcement of his indictment, while Shopin itself has not issued public word on the charges laid against its CEO at press time.
We’ll provide updates as we receive new information.