Investors who bought the token that “Hawk Tuah” meme star Haliey Welch launched earlier this month are taking legal action against the people behind the project.

The price of Welch’s Solana (SOL)-based memecoin HAWK surged shortly after it went live earlier this month, but the token lost more than 95% of its value a few hours later, leading to accusations of a pump-and-dump scheme.

A pump-and-dump scheme is a fraudulent practice in crypto that involves artificially inflating the price of a low-value token through hype and misrepresentation. Once the price of the coin goes up, those behind the scheme sell their holdings at a high price, crashing the price of the token.

In a post on social media platform X, New York-based Burwick Law says it just filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of investors who bought the HAWK token.

“This case involves claims related to investor protections under federal law and the HAWK TUAH memecoin HAWK launched on December 4, 2024.”

According to Newsweek, investors are suing Tuah The Moon Foundation, which handled the proceeds from the sale of HAWK, the coin’s creator OverHere Ltd and its executive, Clinton So, and the token’s Los Angeles-based promoter, Alex Larson Schultz.

The court filings say the lawsuit stems from the unlawful promotion and sale of the memecoin, which the defendants offered and sold to the public without proper registration.

The plaintiffs claim that they were drawn to the project because of Welch’s involvement but sustained substantial damages after the rapid decline in the token’s value.