Charges Unsealed Against British Citizen For Defrauding Investors Of More Than $36 Million

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/charges-unsealed-against-british-citizen-defrauding-investors-more-36-million

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Southern District of New York

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, June 30, 2017

Charges Unsealed Against British Citizen For Defrauding Investors Of More Than $36 Million

Renwick Haddow Misappropriated Investor Funds And Made False And Misleading Representations To Investors In Bitcoin Store, Inc., Bar Works Inc., And Related Entities He Controlled

Joon H. Kim, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and William F. Sweeney Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced today the unsealing of a criminal Complaint in Manhattan federal court charging RENWICK HADDOW, a British citizen, with engaging in schemes to defraud victims by soliciting, through material misrepresentations, and misappropriating investments in companies created by HADDOW called Bitcoin Store Inc. (“Bitcoin Store”) and Bar Works Inc. (“Bar Works”) as well as related entities HADDOW controlled. HADDOW remains at large.
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RENWICK HADDOW is a citizen of the United Kingdom From November 2014 through June 2017, HADDOW solicited investments in start-up companies he created and controlled, including Bitcoin Store — a purported online platform for purchasing, selling, and storing the digital currency known as “Bitcoin”—and Bar Works, which purports to be a company that adapts former restaurants, bar premises, and other locations into co-working spaces. When doing so, HADDOW made material misrepresentations about, among other things, the management, operations, and historical performance of those companies.

For example, HADDOW concealed his interest in Bitcoin Store and fabricated the purported “experienced team of leading investment professionals” working at the company. In connection with Bar Works, HADDOW adopted the alias “Jonathan Black” to further hide his role in the schemes. HADDOW claimed that “Jonathan Black” had an extensive background in finance and had a role in setting up “Car Share,” a car-sharing app.

HADDOW solicited investments through his control of InCrowd Equity Inc. (“InCrowd”), which represented itself as a type of crowdfunding portal through which investors could purchase shares of start-ups supposedly vetted by InCrowd. HADDOW did so without disclosing to investors that he had an ownership interest in both InCrowd, on the one hand, and Bitcoin Store and Bar Works, on the other. HADDOW also misappropriated without permission funds purportedly invested in Bitcoin Store and Bar Works for his own use and the use of others.
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