Cere Network Hit With $100M RICO Lawsuit; Co-Founder Accused of $41M Insider Dump
A new federal RICO complaint alleges Cere Network insiders secretly sold $41M in tokens while enforcing lock-ups on investors, pushing the project into legal chaos.
Cere Network co-founder Fred Jin and the company’s board face a $100 million federal racketeering (RICO) lawsuit filed Tuesday in the Northern District of California. The complaint, led by investor Vivian Liu and her firm Goopal Digital Ltd., alleges Jin orchestrated a pump-and-dump scheme that siphoned over $41 million from investors while enforcing strict lock-up periods on employees and early backers.
This marks the second major legal action against the data cloud platform this month. On Jan. 13, fellow co-founder Kenzi Wang sued Jin in Delaware’s Court of Chancery, claiming the misappropriation of $58 million in corporate assets. The dual filings paint a picture of total governance collapse at a project previously backed by heavyweights like Binance Labs and Republic.
The Allegation: Secret Liquidity While Others Waited
The core of Liu’s complaint centers on a breach of trust regarding token vesting. According to the filing, Jin assured investors and employees that their CERE tokens were subject to lock-up periods to prevent early selling pressure. However, plaintiffs allege that immediately after the token went live in November 2021, Jin and his associates, including family members and shell entities, secretly liquidated $41 million worth of CERE on various exchanges.
"While certain employees and investors had their Cere Tokens 'locked' under the vesting schedule, Jin and his accomplices secretly sold over $41 million in Cere Tokens… and transferred these funds into their personal wallets."
The suit argues this coordinated sell-off crushed the token’s value, leaving retail and locked-up investors holding the bag. CERE currently trades at $0.00034, down 99.9% from its all-time high of $0.47.
The Gotbit Connection
The lawsuit introduces a specific institutional vector: market manipulation via Gotbit. Liu alleges Jin hired the market maker, which faced its own DOJ fraud charges in 2024, to deploy trading bots. These bots allegedly washed-traded CERE to artificially inflate volume, concealing the insiders’ massive sell pressure from the public.
Governance in Freefall
The legal pressure on Jin is compounding. While the California RICO suit focuses on investor fraud, the earlier Delaware filing by co-founder Kenzi Wang targets corporate malfeasance. Wang accuses Jin of falsifying financial statements to hide a $21 million fundraising discrepancy and transferring $41.78 million in company tokens to personal accounts on HTX and KuCoin.
Cere Network has not issued a public statement addressing either lawsuit. The project’s market cap has withered to just $2.25 million, effectively zombie status as legal fees and restitution claims threaten to liquidate what remains of the treasury.
