Melania Trump’s name was exploited in pump-and-dump crypto scam that wiped out $MELANIA investors, lawsuit claims
Two cryptocurrency entrepreneurs behind tokens promoted by First Lady Melania Trump have been accused of orchestrating a wide-ranging fraud scheme using “celebrity association and borrowed fame” to lure investors, according to an amended federal lawsuit.
Racketeering allegations
The class-action suit targets Benjamin Chow, co-founder of crypto exchange Meteora, and Hayden Davis of venture firm Kelsier Labs. It was first filed in April alleging a multimillion-dollar scam tied to a single memecoin, $M3M3, Wired reported. The complaint has since expanded to include claims of racketeering and market manipulation involving multiple tokens.
The filing accuses the pair of engineering a system to inflate prices artificially and then offload…
