This week, the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) has announced the formation of a COVID-19 Task Force, uniting state and provincial regulators to identify and stop potential threats to investors.
“The objective of the task force is to proactively identify COVID-19-related threats to investors, including but not limited to fraudulent offerings, investment frauds, and unregistered regulated activities, within the jurisdiction of NASAA member states and provinces, and to disrupt, discourage and deter those activities,” said Christopher W. Gerold, NASAA President and Chief of the New Jersey Bureau of Securities.
The new task force follows a similar model to NASAA’s cryptocurrency operation launched in 2018.
The association has identified more than 200,000 coronavirus-related internet domain names as of April 2020 with most having been registered in the last three months.
“Fraudsters are ramping up as a result of this crisis. Some jurisdictions have already taken enforcement actions against illegal investment schemes and we fully expect the task force to uncover many more. Our goal is to get and stay ahead of the curve,” Borg said.
