The growing prevalence of cryptocurrency has also led to more frequent — and elaborate — cryptocurrency scams over the years.
One such scam by a fraudulent cryptocurrency company called Centra Tech is now the subject of a new Netflix film called “Bitconned,” set to be released Jan. 1.
“Ray Trapani had always wanted to be a criminal, even as a young boy,” a description for the movie states. “In 2017, amidst the economic frenzy of the bitcoin boom, there was no better place for scammers than cryptocurrency. So, when Ray’s friend approached him with the idea of creating a debit card for crypto, Trapani jumped at the chance. There was only one problem: He had no idea how to do that.”
Centra Tech is one of many recent and high-profile crypto scams that have resulted in million-dollar and billion-dollar losses for customers all over the world.
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Here are some of the most infamous cryptocurrency fraud schemes in history:
Leading co-founder Sohrab Sharma, along with Robert Farkas and Trapani, started Centra Tech in 2017. The company touted cryptocurrency financial products, including a so-called cryptocurrency debit card they dubbed the “Centra Card.”
The company led customers to believe they could use the card to make payments at establishments accepting Visa or Mastercard payments. They also convinced investors to purchase unregistered securities in the form of digital coins, or “Centra Tokens,” according to the Justice Department.
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The founders built Centra Tech on the lie that its made-up founder, “Michael Edwards,” had more than 20 years of banking experience and a master’s degree from Harvard. They also perpetuated more lies “that Centra Tech had formed partnerships with Bancorp, Visa and Mastercard to issue Centra Cards licensed by Visa or Mastercard” and “that Centra Tech had money transmitter and other licenses in 38 states, among other claims,” the DOJ said in a press release.
All three co-founders have since been convicted and sentenced to prison, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Sohrab Sharma led a scheme to deceive investors by falsely claiming that the startup he co-founded had developed fully functioning, cutting-edge cryptocurrency-related financial products,” Ilan T. Graff, a U.S. attorney, said in a 2021 statement. “In reality, Sharma’s most notable inventions were the fake executives, fake business partnerships and fake licenses that he and his co-conspirators touted to trick victims into handing over tens of millions of dollars.”
FTX, a bankrupt and fraudulent cryptocurrency company, made national headlines this year as its founder Sam Bankman-Fried was charged in February and tried in Manhattan federal court.
The court in November found Bankman-Fried guilty of defrauding investors, customers and lenders who took part in his collapsed crypto empire in one of two criminal trials he faced.
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FTX’s downfall erased about $1 billion in customer funds.
Bankman-Fried was charged with two counts of wire fraud and five conspiracy counts. Prosecutors argued that the 31-year-old founder of FTX and its sister hedge fund, Alameda Research, misappropriated and embezzled billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits, scheming to mislead investors and instructing other executives at his businesses to do the same.
“The cryptocurrency industry might be new. The players, like Sam Bankman-Fried, might be new. But this kind of corruption is as old as time,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said after the verdict was announced.
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The FTX founder, who accumulated an estimated net worth of $26 billion before his company declared bankruptcy last year, also testified during his own trial. He admitted to making mistakes but maintained his innocence, saying he did not defraud anyone.
The FTX scam has often been compared to the BitConnect Ponzi scheme.
BitConnect, which has since collapsed, was a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment firm that at one point reached a peak market cap of $3.4 billion, according to the Justice Department.
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A San Diego federal grand jury indicted the company’s founder, Satish Kumbhani of India, last year. Kumbhani is alleged to have misled investors about the company’s “lending program,” which actually operated as a Ponzi scheme by paying off early BitConnect investors with funds from newer investors.
Prosecutors say Kumbhani and his co-conspirators received a total of $2.4 billion from BitConnect investors.
“As cryptocurrency gains popularity and attracts investors worldwide, alleged fraudsters like Kumbhani are utilizing increasingly complex schemes to defraud investors, oftentimes stealing millions of dollars,” Special Agent in Charge Ryan L. Korner of the IRS Criminal Investigation’s Los Angeles Field Office said in a 2022 statement announcing the indictment against Kumbhani.
Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian woman known as the “Cryptoqueen,” is accused of defrauding millions of investors out of an estimated $4 billion through her fraudulent cryptocurrency company, OneCoin, beginning in 2014.
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Ignatova is on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list. Authorities believe she may have assistance from armed guards or associates and may have altered her appearance after traveling to Athens, Greece, in 2017. Her co-founder, Karl Sebastian Greenwood, was sentenced to 20 years in September.
OneCoin marketed a fraudulent cryptocurrency to unsuspecting investors all over the world.
“As a founder and leader of OneCoin, Karl Sebastian Greenwood operated one of the largest fraud schemes ever perpetrated. Greenwood and his co-conspirators, including fugitive Ruja Ignatova, conned unsuspecting victims out of billions of dollars with promises of a ‘financial revolution’ and claims that OneCoin would be the ‘Bitcoin killer,'” Damian Williams said in a September statement.
“In fact, OneCoins were entirely worthless, and investors were left with nothing, while Greenwood lined his own pockets with over $300 million.”
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Ignatova, who is facing charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities fraud, allegedly told investors to transfer funds into their OneCoin accounts to purchase OneCoin packages, according to the Justice Department.
Similarly, BitClub Network was a $722 million fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme “that solicited money from investors in exchange for shares of purported cryptocurrency mining pools and rewarded investors for recruiting new investors into the scheme” between 2014 and 2019, according to the Justice Department.
Multiple people, including BitClub Network creator Matthew Brent Goettsche and Silviu Catalin Balaci, Russ Albert Medlin, Jobadiah Sinclair Weeks, Joseph Frank Abel and Gordon Brad Beckstead, have been charged in connection with the scheme.
Goettsche, Balaci, Abel and Weeks were all released on bond in 2020 and await their sentencing hearings.
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“The indictment describes the defendants’ use of the complex world of cryptocurrency to take advantage of unsuspecting investors,” U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said in a 2019 statement. “What they allegedly did amounts to little more than a modern, high-tech Ponzi scheme that defrauded victims of hundreds of millions of dollars. Working with our law enforcement partners here and across the country, we will ensure that these scammers are held to account for their crimes.”
The suspects spent their money “lavishly” while defrauding investors, whom Goettsche described as “dumb” and “sheep.” He also said he was “building this whole model on the backs of idiots,” according to the DOJ.
Fox News’ Breck Dumas contributed to this report.