Jared Rice Sr., CEO of the Dallas-based bank AriseBank, was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Wednesday, November 28, 2018, and charged with six counts of securities fraud and wire fraud. Rice is accused of scamming investors out of more than $4 million through a cryptocurrency scam that promised federally insured accounts and brand-name credit cards.Earlier this year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) regional office in Fort Worth, Texas, received an emergency court order to stop AriseBank’s initial coin offering (ICO) for the cryptocurrency AriseCoin, which Rice falsely claimed had raised a whopping $600 million. According to the court filing, Rice reportedly lied to investors, saying that the bank — which he called the “first decentralized banking platform” — could offer customers FDIC-insured accounts, as well as traditional banking services such as Visa-brand credit and debit cards. Erin Nealy Cox — the U.S. District Attorney for the Northern District of Texas — states that AriseBank was not FDIC insured, nor did it have the authority to conduct banking operations in Texas. It also did not have an official partnership with Visa. Rice spoke of AriseBank’s allegedly non-existent benefits online and through press releases while spending investor funds on hotel stays, clothing, meals, Uber rides, a family law attorney and guardian ad litem. Prosecutors also ac...
