Two sets of companies used WhatsApp chat groups and promises of artificial-intelligence trading to take at least $15 million from retail investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission says. In two civil complaints filed September 29 in federal court in New York’s Southern District, the SEC alleges that Cryptoaiml Ltd. and Cryptoaiml Capital Foundation misappropriated about $12.5 million, while TSAI Pro Ltd. and TSAI Capital Foundation took about $2.8 million. The agency says no real trading took place and no AI trading bots existed. The companies have not been found liable, and the cases are at their first stage.
A group chat, a fake expert and a trading app
The Cryptoaiml complaint describes a scheme that ran from August 2024 through March 2025. Operators set up WhatsApp group chats and posed as investment professionals from established firms, naming Raymond James & Associates and Citadel Securities. They shared what they called AI-generated trading signals, claimed a 98 percent accuracy rate, and steered members to open accounts on the Cryptoaiml Platform. The platform showed trading screens and profit dashboards, but the complaint says the real-time trading and the signals members were told to follow “did not exist.”
More than 300 retail investors lost money in the Cryptoaiml scheme alone, the SEC says, and its litigation release says the investors included U.S. residents. Anyone invited by a stranger into an investment chat now has a concrete question to answer: can the person giving the tips be shown to be who the chat says, and is that person registered? The SEC’s investor alert on group chats, dated December 22, 2025, says investors should never rely solely on information from group chats when making investment decisions.
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Cryptoaiml: frozen accounts and forged filings
The complaint says the Cryptoaiml website claimed more than 1 million users, 190 supported countries and more than $207 billion in quarterly trading volume. It also says the companies gave themselves an air of regulation. A Form D filed with the SEC, a notice that a company is selling shares under an exemption, named an executive officer, “James Peat,” and carried false contact details and what the SEC calls a forged notarization. Cryptoaiml Ltd. claimed a New York address and the Capital Foundation a Denver one. The SEC says neither company was ever certified by the agency.
The complaint traces the money in two streams. Four crypto wallet addresses received $11,998,455 from investors, which the SEC says was moved quickly across blockchains. About $513,577 in dollars passed through U.S. bank accounts held by shell companies and was then wired to entities in the United Arab Emirates and China. Together the SEC puts the misappropriated total at about $12,512,032. When investors tried to withdraw, the complaint says, they were told their accounts were locked or frozen until they paid more fees, and were told to wire that money to third parties described as “market makers” or “cooperative suppliers.”
The SEC also describes at least two clients who signed investment management agreements under the name Cryptoaiml Venture Capital Management Group, with the paper falsely attributed to Raymond James. The agreements promised management and performance fees. The complaint adds that VIP investors were promised protection against trading losses, including one message saying Citadel Securities would bear up to 90 percent of the trading risk. The SEC charges the Cryptoaiml companies with fraud under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5, and under Sections 206(1) and 206(2) of the Investment Advisers Act, which bar fraud by someone paid to advise on securities.
TSAI Pro: rented robots and a recruiting ladder
The TSAI case runs from September 2024 to March 2025 and, according to the SEC’s complaint against TSAI, used a different pitch. Instead of live chat tips, TSAI promoted “AI trading bot” rentals through its website, WhatsApp groups and public Facebook posts, advertising guaranteed profits. The cheapest bot rented for $100 and promised $20 in total, or $10 a day for two days. The top tier cost $500,000 and promised $17,500 a day for 360 days, a total of $6.3 million. The SEC’s release states plainly that “there were no AI trading bots.”
TSAI also paid people to recruit. The complaint lists commissions of 5 percent on direct recruits, 3 percent on the next level and 2 percent on the level after that, with higher recruiting ranks getting lower bot fees and promised monthly salaries for three years. The SEC says about 1,715 retail investors put in at least $2.8 million in cryptocurrency. It also says TSAI posted a phony agency certificate and filed a Form D naming a director, Benjamin Douglas Cook, who does not exist.
The SEC charges TSAI with fraud under Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5, plus Sections 5(a), 5(c) and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, which cover selling securities that were never registered and fraud in their sale. Both cases ask for permanent injunctions, return of ill-gotten gains with interest, and civil penalties. The Cryptoaiml complaint also seeks a bar from acting as an investment adviser, and the TSAI complaint seeks a conduct-based injunction against future securities activity. The cases are numbered 26-cv-08508 and 26-cv-08518, and SEC lawyers Ruth Pinkel and Stephen Kam of the Los Angeles Regional Office are the litigation counsel.
Checking a stranger’s SEC claim on Investor.gov
Both defendants leaned on the SEC’s name, and the agency’s own warning about false registration claims addresses exactly that. It says scammers show fake certificates, which the SEC does not issue, and point to Form D filings as proof of approval, which they are not. The page directs investors to the free search tool on Investor.gov to confirm whether anyone claiming to be registered actually is. Its advice for anyone who finds a claim false is to stop trading with the person, send no money and share no personal information.
The cases also match the warning signs the SEC listed in its group-chat alert: fake experts, promises of AI-generated trading, profits on a screen that cannot be withdrawn, and demands for fees before money is released. The alert adds that guaranteed high returns with little risk should raise suspicion, and that suspected fraud can be reported to the SEC. Cryptoaiml’s frozen-account fee demand and TSAI’s guaranteed bot returns fit those descriptions closely.
What happens next sits with the court in New York. The SEC is asking for disgorgement, which means the companies would give up what they took, but it has not said whether any of the roughly $15 million can be returned to investors. The companies’ answers to the complaints have not been reported.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Money Overview’s editorial team.
