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The Commission was made aware of the illegal investment
–
taking activities of
BITDEFI HUB / BITDEFIHUB ADVERTISING
(“BITDEFI”)
,
owned and operated by
a
certain
Mark Guevarra Mercado a.k.a.
Mark Merca.
Based on the information gathered,
BITDEFI
is enticing the public to invest their
monies in exchange for huge profits
where a minimum investment amounting to
Php300 will
earn
20% daily
for
10 days
and 25%
Direct Referral Bonus
. To participate, an investor is required to register using the BITDEFI platform.
To complete the investment process, the investor is asked to deposit the cash
investment via GCash or
USDT (TRC20)
after which Php50 shall be credited to the
investor’s dashboard as Registration Bonus
. For the informati
on of all concerned, the scheme
of
BITDEFI
i
nvolve
s
the offering
and sale of securities in the form of investment contracts to the public as investors need not
exert any effort other than to invest or place monies in
BITDEFIHUB ADVERTISING
in order to generate income.
Since said schemes involve the sale of securities t
o the public, the Securities
Regulation Code (SRC) requires that these securities are duly registered with the
Commission and that the concerned corporation and/or its agents have appropriate
registration and/or license to sell such securities to the publi
c pursuant to Section 8.1 and
28.1 of the SRC.
Per records of the Commission,
BITDEFI HUB / BITDEFIHUB ADVERTISING
is
not
registered
as a corporation or partnership and is
not authorized to solicit investments
from the public
as it did not secure prior r
egistration and/or license to solicit investments
from the Commission as prescribed under Section 8.1 of the SRC. However,
BITDEFIHUB
ADVERTISING
has been conferred a Certificate of
B
usiness Name Registration by the
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)
under BNN 4212784 issued to
Mark Guevarra
Mercado
on 05 October 2022
,
v
alid until 05 October 2027.
Moreover,
BITDEFI
is also
NOT REGISTERED
either as a crowdfunding
intermediary or a funding portal under SEC Memorandum Circular No. 14, Series of 2019 or
the
Rules and Regulations Governing Crowdfundin
g.
Consequently, the Commission warns all unscrupulous individuals and/or entities
that
stric
t penalties are imposed for violations of the Securities Regulation Code, the
Revised Corporation Code of the Philippines and such other rules and regulation
enforced by the Commission
.
Therefore, those who act as salesmen, brokers, dealers or agents or cl
aim to act as
such on behalf of
BITDEFI
in selling or convincing people to invest in the investment scheme
being offered by said entities including solicitations and recruitment through the internet
may be prosecuted and held criminally liable under Sectio
n 28 of the SRC and penalized with
a maximum fine of Five Million pesos (Php5,000,000.00) or penalty of Twenty
–
one (21)
years of imprisonment or both pursuant to Section 73 of the SRC.
Further, those who invite or recruit others to join or invest in such
venture or offer
investment contracts or securities to the public may incur criminal liability, or otherwise be
sanctioned or penalized accordingly as held by the Supreme Court in the case of
Securities
and Exchange Commission vs. Oudine Santos (G.R. No.
195542, 19 March 2014)
.
In addition, the names of all those involved will be reported to the Bureau of Internal
Revenue (BIR) so that the appropriate penalties and/or taxes be correspondingly assessed.