The founder of a crypto payments firm is being convicted of defrauding investors out of millions of dollars.
According to a new Department of Justice (DOJ) press release, Randall Crater, the founder of crypto payments company My Big Coin, has been found guilty of running a $6 million digital assets scheme.
The DOJ says Crater lied to customers by claiming that My Big Coin’s assets were backed by $300 million in gold, oil and other valuable assets and that the crypto firm had a marquee partnership with global credit card giant Mastercard.
Crater then used his company’s investment funds to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of luxury items for himself.
“Crater promulgated [his] misrepresentations through social media, the internet, email and text messages. In reality, Coins were not backed by gold or other valuable assets, did not have a partnership with MasterCard and were not readily transferable.
Over the course of the scheme, Crater misappropriated over $6 million of investor funds for his own personal gain, including spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on antiques, artwork and jewelry.”
Crater and his company were first charged with the crimes by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in January 2018.
According to the press release, Crater has been convicted of four counts of wire fraud and three counts of money laundering. According to the DOJ, each count of wire fraud carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison while every count of money laundering carries a maximum 10-year prison time.
Cater is scheduled to be sentenced on October 27th.
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