A U.S. court has issued a subpoena to the Singapore address of Tron founder Justin Sun in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) civil case.
In an April 12 filing, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered Sun to respond to the subpoena within 21 days by contacting SEC attorney Adam Gottlieb. According to the court, if the Tron founder fails to respond, “a default judgment will be entered” recommending penalties for alleged violations of securities laws.
Sun's Twitter profile indicated he was based in Switzerland, while activity on his social media accounts indicated a recent trip to Hong Kong. The Tron co-founder was reportedly born in China and holds Grenada citizenship, while the Tron Foundation was established in Singapore in 2017. In March, the SEC filed a civil lawsuit against Sun, the Tron Foundation, the BitTorrent Foundation, and Rainberry for "scheming unregistered offers and sales, rigging, and illegal touting" of Tron, Safe as a crypto asset. The financial watchdog accused Sun of engaging in “rigged wash trading” by helping to boost public interest in TRX and BitTorrent (BTT) with the help of celebrities including Soulja Boy, Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul and Akon.
At the time of the SEC announcement, all of the celebrities involved in the scheme, with the exception of Austin Mahone and Soulja Boy, had settled with regulators. If Sun wins the case, the SEC said it plans to "permanently bar" Sun from serving as an officer or director of any company offering crypto securities. Sun is far from the only figure in the crypto space to be targeted by U.S. authorities following the 2022 market crash and multiple high-profile bankruptcies. In January, a bankruptcy judge issued a subpoena to Three Arrows Capital co-founder Kyle Davis. Unlike Sun's subpoena, which was sent to a physical address, the U.S. court authorized a subpoena via Twitter in Davis' case, but he did not respond by press time.
