Nine plaintiffs filed a civil lawsuit in California on August 13th against Allysian Sciences co-founders Apolo Ohno and Rod Jao, along with two other defendants, alleging they orchestrated a $50 million cryptocurrency token scam. The suit claims the defendants offered and sold digital tokens known as the "Hybrid Token" between January 2018 and June 2018, defrauding investors worldwide.
The alleged scheme involved a complex web of entities including Hybrid Trade Limited, Asia Digital Asset Exchange, and Allysian Sciences itself. Ohno, a California resident, and Jao, based in Vancouver, Canada, were central figures in this operation. The lawsuit also names Eugenio Pugliese and Henry Liu as defendants.
Investors were lured by promises of a team composed of former Olympic champions, investment bankers, and even White House officials, as stated in the suit. The Hybrid Token's white paper further claimed longstanding relationships with numerous governments and industry regulators across Asia and the Philippines. These claims appear to have been largely unsubstantiated, with the exception of Ohno's Olympic background.
The Hybrid group of companies was designed to include a crypto trading platform called BaseTrade, a crypto exchange named HybridExchange, and an API platform called HybridTerminal, which was announced but reportedly never released. They also planned a shitcoin factory platform named HybridFX and a cryptocurrency wallet. These operations were managed through shell entities registered in Hong Kong, Malta, and Singapore.
The plaintiffs allege that none of the Hybrid companies maintained their own bank accounts. Instead, funds raised from investors were deposited into Allysian Sciences' accounts. This lack of independent financial infrastructure is a key point in the fraud allegations.
The Hybrid Token, an ERC-20 token, was created by the defendants through an entity called HybridBlock. The lawsuit claims that despite soliciting approximately $50 million during the initial coin offering (ICO) phase, little tangible progress was made by the purported Hybrid companies.
The plaintiffs in the case include Brian Kang, Skyblock LLC, Mid-Wilshire Consulting, Prasad Hurra, David Kim, Blue Block Group, Artemio Verduzo, David Kwon, and Young Jae Kwon. They are seeking to recover their losses from the alleged fraudulent token sale.
The suit was filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles. A spokesperson for Apolo Ohno declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.