NanoBit Securities Enforcement Case: A Fake Broker Claim and a Real Money Trail

In the NanoBit securities enforcement case, a federal court ordered NanoBit to pay $1,796,857 after finding it liable for fraud involving a fake crypto asset trading platform. The Securities and Exchange Commission described a pitch built on impersonated financial professionals, a false broker-registration claim and fake initial coin offerings. If you know who supplied the sales messages or controlled the receiving accounts, you may know how the investment story connected to the people taking the money.

This page follows NanoBit’s sales claims, investor transfers and court-ordered payments. Our broader page on fake trading platforms and relationship investment scams follows the pattern across different operations, including what customers were told when they tried to withdraw.

The Broker Claim Made NanoBit Look Safe

NanoBit allegedly used a claim of registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission to reassure investors about its supposed trading platform. In the agency’s account of the complaint, NanoBit falsely described its affiliate, NanobitUS Securities, as an SEC-registered broker. The claim supplied regulatory credibility at the moment the investor was being asked to trust the business.

The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that participants impersonated financial-industry professionals in WhatsApp groups from approximately October 2023 through at least June 2024. They built trust before directing people to invest through NanoBit. The supposed professionals then promoted fake initial coin offerings as a way to make substantial returns.

The alleged deception joined the messenger to the product. A person presented as a financial professional recommended an investment through a platform presented as connected to a registered broker. We see a supposed safeguard turned into a sales tool. In the agency’s account, the regulator’s name did the selling.

For someone who worked on the promotional material, the useful knowledge may be who supplied the broker claim and approved its continued use. For someone handling customer conversations, it may be the connection between the supposed professional’s messages and the instructions to send money. Those are different views of the same alleged sale.

Investor Money Went to Hong Kong Accounts

The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that investors’ funds went to scheme participants, who wired more than $2 million to bank accounts in Hong Kong. It also alleged that participants misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of investors’ crypto assets. The agency described money moving to participants while investors were being sold access to a supposed trading platform.

For NanoBit, we would compare the investment the customer was offered with where the customer was told to send the money, then test the platform’s display against trade and custody records. The payment instruction, receiving account or asset address, and platform entry each describe a different part of that transfer. Someone who handled those records may be able to explain who connected them and what the displayed investment represented. An insider who knows the receiving accounts may see something the WhatsApp customer never could.

The Companies in the NanoBit Action

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged NanoBit Limited, Radiant Horizons Limited, Sweet Karma Fashion Inc. and Zhao Tropical Deli Inc., along with three individuals. It brought the civil securities-fraud action in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Its New York Regional Office conducted the investigation. The agency described NanoBit as among its first enforcement actions alleging relationship investment scams.

NanobitUS Securities appeared in the alleged sales pitch as the affiliate said to be a registered broker. NanoBit Limited was the platform company the SEC charged. Keeping the name used to reassure customers beside the name on the payment and operating records helps us examine how the claimed affiliation worked in the sale.

What the NanoBit Default Judgment Ordered

On June 16, 2026, the court granted a default judgment against the four companies and two individual defendants. They had failed to appear, and the court accepted the complaint’s factual allegations as true in finding them liable for securities fraud.

NanoBit’s obligation included $532,649 in disgorgement, the money it was ordered to give up from the conduct, and a $1,182,251 civil penalty. The same civil penalty applied separately to Radiant Horizons, Sweet Karma Fashion and Zhao Tropical Deli.

The court also permanently barred the defendants from participating in securities issuance, purchases, offers or sales, or inducing others to buy or sell securities. It expressly allowed the two individual defendants to trade for their own personal accounts.

Asset Addresses Corrected the SEC’s Figure

The court traced NanoBit’s disgorgement figure to assets received at two sets of asset addresses. One set received $114,599 in assets and the other received $418,050, according to the declaration the court relied on. Those receipts supplied the basis for the company’s disgorgement obligation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s memorandum had listed $523,649 instead. The court identified the discrepancy as an apparent clerical error and used the declaration and its exhibits to establish the amount owed. The underlying asset records answered a question the summary figure got wrong.

For a whistleblower who knows the payment instructions, this is a concrete reason the receiving address matters. It connects the instruction given to an investor with assets that actually arrived. We examine that connection alongside the sales message and the platform’s account record, so the story can be tested against a transaction outside the screen.

What Evidence Is Needed for Whistleblowing?

For a NanoBit-type operation, useful securities fraud evidence connects the investment representations to the records and decisions behind them. The person supplying the broker-registration wording, the person directing a bank transfer and the person maintaining the platform’s account data may know different parts of that connection. Our work starts with the part you know.

A customer message shows what the investor was told. Internal instructions may show who supplied that wording, which account should receive the money and how the transaction should appear to the customer. Trade and custody records can then help test what investment activity stood behind the representation. We examine those comparisons with you, including any internal questions about the claim and the response they received.

The 2024 International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research paper Corporate fraud and White-Collar Crime: Legal Responses and Enforcement describes complementary investigative work: forensic accounting follows financial transactions, while digital forensics examines electronic communications and computer records. That is a useful distinction for someone who knows either the payment side or the customer-message side of an operation. Connecting the two can give a transfer its explanation and a sales message its financial consequence.

How Much Do SEC Whistleblowers Get Paid?

Eligible SEC whistleblowers can share 10% to 30% of qualifying monetary sanctions actually collected in an action with sanctions exceeding $1 million. The award rewards information contributing to successful enforcement. Our page on whistleblower awards and investor recovery distinguishes an award from money returned to investors. We assess how your knowledge of the sales claims and receiving accounts could contribute to a securities fraud whistleblower case. Separately, a whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers.

You Know Where the Payment Instructions Came From

If you know who supplied a platform’s false credentials or directed its investor transfers, speak with our whistleblower experts about the operation you saw. We connect your knowledge of the pitch and the payment records into a case, bring in securities fraud whistleblower lawyers who understand crypto asset evidence, and stay with you through the process.