By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Foreign speculators with dubious ownership claims sought to sell a Cat Island property featuring “government offices and a bank” to a fraud-accused group in “crypto’s largest-ever real estate deal”.

The murky transaction, billed as a $554m agreement to acquire 7,721 acres of Bahamian real estate spread across three islands, threw up multiple “red flags” and is exposed in a lawsuit that accuses the purchaser of using the deal - which has never closed - to inflate its value as part of a $100m “massive securities offering fraud”.

The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), the US capital markets regulator, in a May 20, 2025, action filed in the southern New York federal court is accusing the Unicoin crypto currency group of issuing “multiple false and misleading statements” to investors about its Bahamian real estate dealings despite senior executives admitting the land’s sellers were “shady” and had a questionable past.

Unicoin’s senior executives allegedly decided to proceed with the acquisition despite “serious concerns” over whether the parties it was dealing with “held marketable title” to the properties it was purchasing. These questions were raised in reports by Bahamian appraisers, not identified in the SEC lawsuit, who found that the three supposedly vacant parcels all contained residential and commercial buildings.

The deal’s structure involved Unicoin acquiring 100 percent beneficial ownership of two companies, Long Island Investments and Newport Harbour, which allegedly held the underlying real estate assets. Both entities have featured in previous Tribune Business reports, some dating back decades, as being involved in land speculation and questionable real estate dealings in numerous Family Islands.

This newspaper’s records show both companies were either formed by, or linked to, Billy Wayne Davis, a US citizen well-known for his involvement in real estate transactions on Rum Cay and Long Island. The SEC lawsuit references at least three Tribune Business articles on Long Island Investments and Newport Harbour, dating between 2014 to 2017, and their activities without naming them.

Mr Davis, who in 2016 ran for the Republican nomination in Georgia’s 11th congressional district, has enjoyed a colourful and controversial real estate career, featuring in numerous court actions both as plaintiff and defendant. In 1994, he was convicted in the north Alabama federal court in 1994 for “providing false information” on a loan application concerning land he purportedly owned in The Bahamas.

Mr Davis did not respond to a Tribune Business e-mail seeking comment, sent to the personal address this newspaper has for him, before press time yesterday. However, the SEC’s lawsuit reveals that one of the persons Unicoin was negotiating with was jailed for 12.5 years in 2015 for defrauding investors out of more than $8m in a Rum Cay real estate scam.

While not named in the action itself, Tribune Business research and records identify the “associate” who helped work on and negotiate the deal with Unicoin as Lawrence Foster, promoter of the Paradise Is Mine scheme, which convinced some 90 investors to part with their funds on the basis they would be used to develop Rum Cay. Instead, Foster misappropriated the funds to finance his own lifestyle.

The SEC lawsuit’s contents again expose just how vulnerable The Bahamas is to having its good name used, exploited and besmirched by unscrupulous foreigners to generate ill-gotten gains. It also further strengthens the case for the Government’s land reform drive, and bid to eradicate dubious real estate dealings where title and ownership are questionable, by switching to a registered land system.

Once all land parcels are properly adjudicated, and entered into the land registry, their owners will enjoy “absolute title” and ownership certainty that will be better able to withstand unscrupulous challenges, thus offering better protection to unsuspecting parties.

The SEC’s lawsuit asserts that “crypto’s largest ever real estate deal” was actually worth 24 percent, less than one-quarter, of the $554m value that Unicoin placed on it. The US capital markets regulator argued that, at most, the three land parcels were worth $132m combined.

“Between January and June 2024, defendants made multiple false and misleading statements about Unicoin’s purported acquisition of the beneficial ownership in two entities that claimed to own three properties in The Bahamas purportedly valued at $396m,” the SEC action alleged.

“The promoting defendants repeatedly touted Unicoin’s acquisition of The Bahamas properties, although they knew of or recklessly disregarded serious red flags about the sellers’ actual ownership of the properties.”

The SEC action names Alexander Konanykhin, Maria Silvina Moschini, Alejandro Dominguez and Richard Devlin as defendants. They were Unicoin’s chief executive; president and chair; chief investment officer, and senior vice-president and general counsel when the Bahamian real estate deal was being discussed and negotiated.

“In July 2023, Konanykhin and Dominguez began a series of extensive discussions and communications with the representative of sellers of property in The Bahamas regarding Unicoin’s potential acquisition of those properties,” the SEC alleged.

“The parties ultimately settled on Unicoin acquiring beneficial ownership in two entities, Long Island Investments Ltd and Newport Harbour Ltd, which purportedly owned three parcels of land located on Long Island, Cat Island and Andros in The Bahamas, for a total of 7,721 acres in exchange for Unicoin rights certificates.” The latter were Unicoin’s own crypto tokens or digital assets.

The SEC claimed Unicoin’s senior executives knew about the questionable history and track record of both Long Island Investments and Newport Harbour, and their principals, from “the outset of their discussions” and “became aware of red flags about the potential transaction, including prior allegations of fraud regarding the sellers and doubts about the sellers’ ownership of The Bahamas’ properties”.

They suggested the vendors could not be trusted as early as July 20, 2023, and knew as early as September 8 that year of the US Department of Justice press release naming Mr Foster - one of those they were negotiating with - “as a convicted felon who had been sentenced in 2015 to 12.5 years in prison for defrauding more than 100 investors out of more than $8m in a Bahamas land development scheme”.

Dominguez, in a What’s App message, said: “[A]ll these guys sound pretty shady. They don’t want to be on video etc. And we already know [the Bahamas entities’ representative] is a little shady. So I went ahead and Googled them and there you go. Incredible.

“But I don’t know. Definitely don’t think we should do any business with these people. . . . They’re gonna send us some proposition for $400m worth of the land in The Bahamas. Who knows if they even own it?” However, Unicoin’s chief executive was much more laid back over these revelations.

“Let’s see what they offer and do very thorough DD (due diligence) on the property IF it looks appealing. If somebody served his sentence, he’s not precluded from purchasing stock or crypto currency, but we must very carefully examine the cost/benefit balance there,” he replied. Despite other executives voicing concern about the “risk” involved, Unicoin moved ahead and hired appraisers for each parcel.

“Information contained in the appraisals raised serious concerns about whether the Bahamas entities [Long Island Investments and Newport Harbour] held marketable title to the properties,” the SEC alleged in its lawsuit.

“For example, although the Bahamas entities’ representative claimed that the Cat Island property was a vacant parcel of land, the appraisal for that property stated there were ‘several residences, government offices, a bank and convenience stores’ already located on the Cat Island property.

“‘Many of the residents’ on the Cat Island parcel ‘claim[ed] that they had been given the land and resided on it for many years’, and that ‘many roads were also cut into the property as if [it had] been sold for subdivision use’,” the SEC action continued.

“The appraisal for the Cat Island property concluded: ‘The appraiser c[ould] not validate the ownership of the said property or title, and thereby relie[d] only on the word of the owners [the Bahamas entities] and the old documents provided. As a result, the land was appraised without these structures and valued as vacant land’.”

While the location of the Cat Island land parcel is not identified, it is likely to have featured Bank of The Bahamas’ branch as it is the only branch with a physical presence on the island. The appraisals for the Long Island and Andros parcels came back with similar findings - that residences and buildings are situated on properties billed as vacant by Long Island Investments and Newport Harbour.

“Unicoin conducted little or no additional investigation regarding who held title to the Bahamas properties prior to announcing the transaction. In addition to the above red flags, publicly available information indicated that the Bahamas entities had been involved in prior real estate fraud schemes,” the SEC alleged.

It added that one of Long Island Investments and Newport Harbour’s principals had appeared as a witness for Mr Foster at his trial, while another “signed conveyance documents that the Bahamas entities provided to Unicoin to establish their ownership of The Bahamas’ properties”.

“On January 24, 2024, despite the red flags, Unicoin signed an agreement with the Bahamas entities to acquire The Bahamas’ properties,” the SEC alleged. The deal was publicly announced just over one week later, on February 1 last year, and the regulator is accusing Unicoin of deceiving investors into believing the transaction was sealed when, in fact, it never closed.

“The Bahamas properties press release failed to mention any of the numerous red flags concerning the sellers or the title,” the SEC alleged. “Such red flags would have been material to a reasonable investor considering a purchase of Unicoin rights certificates or Unicoin common stock, given the size and significance of the purported transaction relative to Unicoin’s assets.

“The statements... regarding Unicoin’s acquisition of the beneficial ownership of the Bahamas entities - and thus the Bahamas properties - failed to disclose that the Bahamas entities were connected to prior land frauds; that several of the defendants had doubts about whether the Bahamas entities owned The Bahamas’ properties; and that the appraisals provided to Unicoin for The Bahamas properties raised serious questions about whether the Bahamas entities held marketable title.”