The founders and promoters of the multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme Airbit Club have pleaded guilty to various criminal charges. Airbit Club victims were promised “guaranteed daily returns on any membership purchased,” the US Department of Justice (DOJ) detailed.
Airbit Club operators and promoters plead guilty
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday that six people behind Airbit Club, a crypto Ponzi scheme purporting to be a cryptocurrency mining and trading company, have pleaded guilty.
The six people are co-founders of Airbit Club (Pablo Renato Rodríguez and Gutemberg Dos Santos), main promoters (Karina Chairez, Cecilia Millan and Jackie Aguilar) and a lawyer who laundered the proceeds of the Airbit Club fraud (Scott Hughes). According to the DOJ:
As part of their guilty pleas, the defendants were collectively ordered to forfeit their fraudulent Airbit Club proceeds, which include seized or restricted assets consisting of U.S. currency, bitcoin, and real estate currently valued at approximately $100 million.
The promoters “falsely promised victims that Airbit Club would earn profits from cryptocurrency mining and trading and that victims would earn passive and guaranteed daily profits on any purchased memberships,” the Justice Department detailed.
The Justice Department explained that beginning in late 2015, the defendants marketed Airbit Club as “a multi-level marketing club in the cryptocurrency industry.” They traveled around the world to organize “luxurious exhibitions and small community presentations” in the US, Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe to convince victims to buy Airbit Club memberships with cash. After purchasing memberships, victims were given access to an online portal with false representations of earnings from bitcoin mining or trading, when in fact there was no such activity.
The Department of Justice described:
Instead, Rodríguez, Dos Santos, Millán and Aguilar got rich and spent the victims’ money on cars, jewelry and luxury homes, and financed more extravagant exhibitions to recruit more victims.
Many victims encountered obstacles trying to withdraw money from the Airbit Club online portal in 2016, the Justice Department said, adding that complaints filed with a promoter “were met with excuses, delays and hidden fees amounting to more than 50% of the Withdrawal requested by the victim.” Some victims were unable to withdraw funds at all.
All six people have pleaded guilty to various charges, including wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and bank fraud conspiracy. These charges carry a potential maximum sentence of 20 years, 20 years, and 30 years in prison, respectively.
How many years do you think the founders and promoters of Airbit Club should go to prison? Let us know in the comments section.
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