Crypto Promoter Charged With Scamming Investors Out of Millions

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged a California-based cryptocurrency promoter with conducting two unregistered and fraudulent securities offerings that promised “astronomical rates of return” through purported trading and advertising arbitrage.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Ryan Ginster, 34, raised $3.6 million in Bitcoin from the offerings through online platforms MyMicroProfits.com and Social Profimatic and allegedly lied to investors in both offerings about how their funds would be used.

The SEC further accused Ginster—who also went by the alias Ryan Oakley—of misappropriating at least $1 million of the funds he raised to pay for personal expenses, such as tax payments, mortgage payments, a luxury vehicle, and almost $200,000 in various credit card bills.

“Ginster allegedly engaged in a fraudulent scheme raising millions in cryptocurrency using online investment programs and then converted the cryptocurrency for his own benefit,” Michele Wein Layne, regional director of the SEC’s Los Angeles regional office, said in a statement. “Individuals who hide behind the anonymity of cryptocurrency transactions to defraud investors should expect that the SEC will trace their illegal activity and hold them accountable for their actions.”

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In the Social Profimatic offering, Ginster allegedly raised approximately $840,000 in Bitcoin by promising on both the platform’s website and in YouTube videos returns of 8% a day, which, according to the SEC, corresponds to an annual rate of return of nearly 1,600,000,000,000%.

The complaint said the Social Profimatic website claimed that investors “choose how much you wish to deposit with us & we’ll pay you 8% every day. Our system will divide your revenue share payments up by the hour so you receive INSTANT and AUTOMATIC payments each hour. After you have your deposit made, we start creating & fulfilling social media marketing orders behind the scenes day & night on your behalf!”

However, the SEC alleges that once investors’ funds were received, Ginster transferred the money to at least five digital asset wallets under his control and converted it to fiat currency to pay his personal expenses. The regulator said there was no indication Ginster ever attempted to generate returns through social media marketing orders as promised.

Under the MyMicroProfits.com offering, Ginster raised nearly $2.8 million in Bitcoin on promised returns of 0.13% per hour, or 3.12% per day. By the SEC’s calculations, that would mean a $10 investment be worth almost $45,000 after just nine months. Ginster claimed he would do this by investing in micro profit opportunities such as “transaction processing fees, cloud hosting, cryptocurrency trading, and advertising arbitrage.” As with the previous offering, the SEC said there was no evidence Ginster ever attempted to generate returns through transaction processing fees, cloud hosting, cryptocurrency trading, and advertising arbitrage.

The complaint also alleges that despite promises by both platforms that investors’ returns could be easily withdrawn, investors were not able to withdraw their funds.

The SEC is seeking permanent injunctions, disgorgement with prejudgment interest, and civil penalties against Ginster.

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Tags: Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Fraud, MyMicroProfits.com, Ryan Ginster, SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission, Social Profimatic, unregistered offering

Mansco Perry III. Art by John Jay Cabuay

Mansco Perry III has announced his retirement, completing some 30 years of service to the state of Minnesota, most recently as the executive director and CIO of the Minnesota State Board of Investment (SBI).

For the past eight years of his tenure as CIO, the pension fund’s total assets under management have almost doubled, up from $68 billion in 2013 to nearly $130 billion as of Sept. 30. Perry plans on retiring from SBI in 2022, but those who know him say they aren’t convinced he’ll be retiring altogether. (They joke that if the Yankees’ front office calls him, he’ll drop everything.)

In his current role, Perry reports to the governor of Minnesota and its investment board, and he is renowned for his skills as both investor and effective liaison and navigator between the state government, the board, and the investment office.

He has a board mandate to grow the $130 billion fund, under sharp risk control. Perry has excelled in a way few others have, creating a solid and safe investment structure with returns rarely seen. This past year, early numbers showed the pension plan returning 30.3% for 2021, the highest return since 1983, when the fund logged 40.3%.

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When comparing his returns against other reporting public plans with $20 billion or more, Perry’s plan has been ranked in the top 1% for the past 10 years, according to the Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service (TUCS). Combined with a sharp focus on cost efficiency, Perry also leverages the advantages of scale at his successful plan and has saved the state of Minnesota more than $100 million in fees.

Throughout his financial services career, he has held roles as a leader of corporate, college endowment, and public funds, with earlier roles as an auditor, analyst, and compliance officer. In that time, Perry has implemented strategic, forward-thinking investment strategies that created high-impact innovations; built teams and processes that improved performance; cut losses; and drove effective results. He is a preferred mentor in financial offices and has decades of experience working with governance boards.

Perry achieves success through leadership and effective negotiation. He oversees more than 150 investment relationships with his staff of 12, spread over 50 public equities managers and 100 private market managers. With a keen eye toward growth strategy, he is currently building a co-investment program, as well as a team of native managers in Asia, as he has effectively done in Europe. He has implemented environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives within his fund and added an ESG component to his quarterly report.

When he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by this publication in 2018, he recognized that he’s a product of the 1960s’ Neighborhood Youth Corp and Upward Bound (in Newark, New Jersey), two government programs meant to fight the war on poverty that gave him early work training and paved the way to him becoming the first person in his family to attend college.

Earlier in his career, Perry gained corporate expertise working at Cargill Inc. with a small group of MBA graduates as a divisional controller, performing financial analysis for management. At Dayton Hudson (now Target) he worked as a financial analyst, performing real quarter-by quarter accounting for the company, while attending law school at night. He was also recruited by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis to work as special assistant to the senior vice president of finance.

When he was hired by the state of Minnesota, Perry first began in the tax department and was later directed to create a system of financial accountability for auditing gains.

From there, Perry’s multifaceted talents were quickly recognized, and he held roles as an alternatives analyst, director of research, and assistant executive director, where he coordinated and charted the entire workflow of the investment office, gaining control of menial and intellectual property. He left to broaden and further his leadership skills by taking an endowment post as chief investment officer.

Perry is known for building strong relationships, to the benefit of those affiliated with him. When he became CIO of the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System in 2008, the pension plan benefited from his early connections in Minnesota, and the small fund was able to establish beneficial relationships with firms such as KKR.

His has board experience on the boards or investment committees of Lawrence University, the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System, the Bush Foundation, the Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Minnesota Private College Council, and the William Mitchell College of Law (where he graduated from law school).