{"id":11997,"date":"2021-09-11T14:54:04","date_gmt":"2021-09-11T14:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/30-million-crypto-schemes-leader-pleads-guilty-facing-up-to-20-years-in-prison\/"},"modified":"2021-09-11T14:54:04","modified_gmt":"2021-09-11T14:54:04","slug":"30-million-crypto-schemes-leader-pleads-guilty-facing-up-to-20-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/30-million-crypto-schemes-leader-pleads-guilty-facing-up-to-20-years-in-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"$30 Million Crypto Scheme\u2019s Leader Pleads Guilty, Facing up to 20 Years in Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

The leader of a cryptocurrency scheme that swindled over $30 million from investors has pleaded guilty to fraud, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said. He now faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leader of $30M Crypto Scheme Pleads Guilty to Fraud<\/h2>\n

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday that Michael Ackerman has pleaded guilty to wire fraud. The Justice Department described that Ackerman is the leader of a \u201cfake cryptocurrency investment scheme.\u201d He \u201corchestrated a multimillion-dollar cryptocurrency investment scheme\u201d and \u201cadmitted to causing victim losses of more than $30 million.\u201d The DOJ elaborated:<\/p>\n

Ackerman, 52, of Sheffield Lake, Ohio, pled guilty today to one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.<\/p>\n

According to court filings, in or around 2017, Ackerman and others started a purported cryptocurrency investment fund and recruited hundreds of investors. \u201cThe fund was an investment club that allowed its members to contribute U.S. dollars, which the investors were told would then be used to invest and trade in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,\u201d the DOJ noted.<\/p>\n

Ackerman was the fund\u2019s chief trading officer; he personally controlled the fund\u2019s primary trading account on a cryptocurrency exchange. He claimed that the fund\u2019s proprietary trading algorithm was earning about 15% in profit for investors each month.<\/p>\n

By December 2019, he claimed that the fund investment pool, which consisted of about $37 million in original investor contributions, had grown in value to about $315 million. However, \u201cIn reality, the primary trading account used by Ackerman had an account balance that never exceeded approximately $5 million,\u201d the DOJ said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the Justice Department detailed: \u201cInstead of investing and trading on behalf of the fund, Ackerman stole at least $9 million in investor contributions and used them to bankroll a lavish lifestyle that included his purchase of multiple pieces of real estate, hundreds of thousands of dollars of Tiffany jewelry, vehicles, travel, and personal security services.\u201d The DOJ concluded:<\/p>\n

Under the terms of his plea, Ackerman agreed to make restitution of at least $30,667,738.79. Ackerman also agreed to forfeiture of $36,268,515, including the millions of dollars in cash, real estate, and jewelry that were fraudulently obtained from victims or bought with victim funds.<\/p>\n

What do you think about this case? Let us know in the comments section below.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Bitcoin News
\nRegulation, court case, Crypto Fraud, crypto scam, DOJ, prison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The leader of a cryptocurrency scheme that swindled over $30 million from investors has pleaded guilty to fraud, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said. He now faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Leader of $30M Crypto Scheme Pleads Guilty to Fraud The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday that Michael…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blockchain-news","category-coin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11997"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}