FBI Investigates Once Long Island Iced Tea Company for Committing Securities Fraud, Insider Trading

Then Long Island Iced Tea Company, turned “Long Blockchain” in 2017 is being investigated by the U.S Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports Coin Desk, who originally referenced news outlet, Quartz.

The reason for said investigation supposedly stems from the fact that the firm might be involved in securities fraud at another firm, Kelvin Medical.

According to the search warrant, which has since been made available online, it has been ordered to,

“seize additional items found on a cellular telephone belonging to Oliver Lindsay.”

Along with Lindsay is Gannon Giguiere who were both detained due to their potential relation to the case with investigations still taking place. The hunt for the phone is what will uncover potential insider trading reports the news outlet, adding that it involves Long Island Iced Tea stock on Lindsay’s phone.

The search warrant also noted that the aforementioned duo was committing security crimes by, “engaging in a pump-and-dump and market manipulation scheme in connection with Kelvin Medical stock.” This is supposedly not the first of its likes, as Giguiere did something similar with the Eco Science Solutions Stock.

Due to said pump and dump, Long Blockchain was both delisted from NASDAQ and subpoenaed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This being said, investors have also been warned regarding this matter in the past, emphasizing that the team behind Long Blockchain were taking investor interest in blockchain technology to their advantage and misusing it.

As for the series of conversations that took place and can only be retrieved from Lindsay’s phone, the news outlet highlighted one aspect of the search warrant, which stressed that the former and “other individuals [had] discussed what appears to be confidential information regarding LTEA. So far some of these other individuals have been unveiled as being, Eric Watson and Julian Davidson.