Former Theta executives accuse the company's CEO of fraud

Dec 17, 2025 13:30:00

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According to a report by Decrypt, two former executives of Theta Labs, Jerry Kowal and Andrea Berry, have filed a whistleblower lawsuit in California, accusing the company and CEO Mitch Liu of engaging in fraud, market manipulation, and retaliatory actions for years.

The lawsuit claims that Liu used Theta Labs and its parent company to inflate token prices through misleading partnerships and undisclosed internal token sales, and retaliated against employees who raised concerns. The plaintiffs' lawyers accuse Liu of using the company as a personal trading tool, executing a carefully orchestrated "pump and dump" scheme.

Specific allegations include: creating false bids for NFTs, high-profile collaborations with celebrities like Katy Perry that are alleged to be fraudulent, and falsely promoting a routine cloud services agreement with Google (worth approximately $7 million) as a "strategic partnership" to mislead investors.

Currently, Theta Labs and Liu have not responded to requests for comment.

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