Real Creative Commons photo of SEC headquarters for a Nathan Fuller crypto fraud enforcement story.

SEC Charges Texas Man Over $12.3 Million AI Crypto Bot Scheme

By Isaac • May 30, 2026 9:58 am • Comments

The SEC charged Texas resident Nathan Fuller on Thursday over an alleged crypto fraud scheme that pulled in about $12.3 million from roughly 150 investors.

The pitch was built on artificial intelligence. The agency says Fuller told investors he would run proprietary AI trading bots for high-frequency crypto arbitrage.

According to the SEC, the bots did not work as advertised.

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The SEC complaint is a civil filing, and the allegations still have to be proved in court.

Even so, the complaint reads like a checklist of the crypto-fraud pitch in 2026: AI branding, guaranteed returns, fake account statements, and fabricated correspondence from entities that did not exist.

The numbers in the complaint show where the money allegedly went. The SEC says Fuller took at least $6.2 million for personal expenses and used about $5.5 million to make Ponzi-like payments to earlier investors.

Current crypto coverage pulled out another sharp detail from the complaint: only a tiny share of investor money allegedly reached actual crypto trading.

That is the classic structure dressed in new clothes. Old recycling scheme, fresh AI vocabulary.

The promised returns were absurd on their face. The SEC says Fuller told some investors they would see gains north of 40 to 50 percent in 30 to 45 days, and pitched guaranteed profits over 100 percent in as little as 21 days.

SEC:

On May 28, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Nathan Fuller, a resident of Cypress, Texas, in a crypto asset trading scheme in which Fuller allegedly raised approximately $12.3 million from about 150 investors based on various misrepresentations and omissions, including that he would use proprietary AI-based trading bots to engage in high-frequency arbitrage trading in crypto assets.

According to the SEC’s complaint, from at least October 2022 through mid-2024, Fuller offered and sold joint-venture interests in a crypto asset trading scheme through his company, Privvy Investments, LLC, and under the assumed business names Privvy Investments and Gateway Digital Investments.

As alleged, Fuller falsely promised some investors that their investments would generate returns of more than 40-50% within 30 to 45 days and falsely claimed that investors stood to make guaranteed profits exceeding 100% in as little as 21 days.

According to the complaint, Fuller’s bots did not function as represented and Fuller misappropriated at least $6.2 million of investor funds for personal expenses, used approximately $5.5 million of investor funds to make Ponzi-like payments, and lulled investors using fake account statements and fabricated correspondence from phony entities.

The mechanics deserve attention because they show how the sales script evolved.

The same point showed up in the wider market conversation because it cuts against the entire AI-bot sales pitch.

A few years ago the sales hook was “DeFi yield.” Before that it was “mining.”

Now the same pitch reaches for AI.

The underlying con does not change. A promoter claims a black-box system generates returns no human could, the box is impossible for the average investor to verify, and the only evidence offered is a statement the promoter prints himself.

The AI label does real work for fraudsters. It sounds sophisticated, it sounds current, and it gives investors a reason to stop asking how the money is actually made.

That is the lesson the next investor should take from this case. When someone fronts an AI trading bot with guaranteed triple-digit returns and statements you cannot independently confirm, the AI part is the bait, not the engine.

Real crypto markets are competitive and brutal. Guaranteed arbitrage at those rates does not exist, and any bot that could deliver it would not be sold to retail investors through a Texas LLC under three different names.

Expect more filings built around this vocabulary.

As long as AI sells, fraud promoters will keep borrowing the label while the recycled-money structure underneath stays the same.

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