United States v. Newcombe

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced the unsealing of an indictment charging two individuals in connection with a “scheme to commit fraud in the multi-billion-dollar global market for buying and selling carbon credits.” The individuals’ company ran projects to generate carbon credits, including projects to install cookstoves in rural Africa and Southeast Asia. The individuals allegedly submitted false and misleading data to an issuer of voluntary carbon credits and deceived an investor into agreeing to invest up to $250 million in the company. The grand jury charged the defendants with counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and securities fraud. The U.S. Attorney also announced a guilty plea by the company’s chief operations officer to charges of wire fraud conspiracy, commodities fraud conspiracy, and securities fraud conspiracy.