The U.S. Division of Justice (DOJ) charged a Nevada man for his participation in a cryptocurrency scheme known as CoinDeal on Could 19.
The DOJ mentioned that Nevada resident Bryan Lee conspired with CoinDeal chief Neil Chandran to defraud buyers by way of Chandran’s firms.
Lee was the nominee proprietor and director of a type of firms, ViMarket, which claimed to be creating VR and “metaverse” applied sciences and an related cryptocurrency. Whereas Chandran promised “extraordinarily excessive returns” to buyers, Lee adopted Chandran’s directions and put investor funds into ViMarket’s financial institution accounts.
Each people spent tens of millions of {dollars} price of misappropriated funds on non-business bills, together with luxurious automobiles and property, the DOJ mentioned.
Lee faces as much as 110 years in jail on numerous counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, and interesting in financial transactions on criminally derived property. He has not but been discovered responsible and can make his first look in court docket instantly.
The DOJ individually introduced expenses in opposition to Chandran in June 2022, who was additionally arrested at the moment. The company additionally mentioned that one other conspirator, Michael Glaspie, plead responsible in February 2023 and shall be sentenced in June.
The U.S. Securities and Change Fee (SEC) moreover charged eight events in connection to the CoinDeal scheme in January 2023.
CoinDeal stole about $45 million from 10,000 victims in whole.
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