Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul and several other celebrities were slapped with a combined $400,000 fine over violations related to cryptocurrency. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Wednesday this week that it is also charging Justin Sun, the founder of TRON, a decentralized, open-source blockchain-based operating system.

The 36-year-old “Mean Girls” actress, the American media personality and six other celebrities were charged by the SEC as they did not disclose to have received payment to promote cryptocurrency. They agreed to pay the hefty fine, plus they must return the amount they were paid for the promotion.

According to CNN Business, Lohan’s payment to promote Tronix crypto tokens was $10,000, and it was paid to her by Justin Sun’s TRON company. The actress’ representative said that Lohan was contacted in March of last year, and unfortunately, she was not aware of the payment disclosure requirement in the crypto business. The rep further said that to immediately solve the issue with SEC, Lohan agreed to pay $30,000 in fines.

It was in February 2021 when the actress tweeted, “Exploring #DeFi and already liking $JST, $SUN on $TRX. Super fast and 0 fee. Good job @justinsuntron.” This is apparently an advertisement, and the SEC also said that Lohan failed to make it known that this tweet was a paid endorsement.

On the other hand, Jake Paul was paid $25,000 to promote Tronix, and his promotion started via social media just a day after Lohan did. The other celebrities who were charged with the same offense are Soulja Boy (DeAndre Cortez Way), a musician; Ne-Yo (Shaffer Smith), a musician; Austin Mahone, a singer; Kendra Lust (Michele Mason), an adult film actress; Lil Yachty (Miles Parks McCollum), a rapper; and Aliaune Thiam (Akon), a Senegalese-American singer.

Paul’s fine is higher than Lohan’s as he will pay $75,000 plus the payment he got from TRON. the SEC also announced it charged Justin Sun and three of his wholly-owned firms - the Tron Foundation Limited, Rainberry Inc., and BitTorrent Foundation Ltd. Sun and his companies were charged for the unregistered offer and sale of crypto asset securities Tronix and BitTorrent.

“This case demonstrates again the high-risk investors face when crypto asset securities are offered and sold without proper disclosure,” Gary Gensler, SEC chairman, said in a press release. “As alleged, Sun and his companies not only targeted U.S. investors in their unregistered offers and sales, generating millions in illegal proceeds at the expense of investors, but they also coordinated wash trading on an unregistered trading platform to create the misleading appearance of active trading in TRX.”

He added, “Sun further induced investors to purchase TRX and BTT by orchestrating a promotional campaign in which he and his celebrity promoters hid the fact that the celebrities were paid for their tweets.”

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