Founders of Crypto Ponzi Scheme “Airbit Club” Plead Guilty
The founders and promoters of ‘Airbit Club’, the multimillion-dollar crypto Ponzi scheme, have pled guilty to a number of criminal charges.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said that victims had been promoted guaranteed daily returns on the purchase of any membership.
The announcement
On Wednesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that six people behind the Ponzi scheme that had presented itself as a crypto mining and trading firm had pled guilty.
These include the co-founders of Airbit, Gutemberg Dos Santos and Paulo Renato Rodriguez and senior promoters Jackie Aguilar, Cecilia Millan and Karina Chairez.
The sixth individual was Scott Hughes, a lawyer who laundered the fraud proceeds of Airbit Club.
The DOJ announced that the defendants would forfeit all the fraudulent proceeds, including all restrained and seized assets worth $100 million in the form of real estate, bitcoin and US currency.
The DOJ
It further detailed that victims had been falsely promised returns on crypto trading and mining. They were promised passive and everyday returns on buying a membership.
The Airbit Club had first been marketed in 2015 and the defendants had traveled all around the world. They had hosted small community presentations and lavish expos in Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and the US.
After the victims had bought the membership, they were granted access to an online portal, which showed false representations of returns from bitcoin trading and mining.
The details
There had not been any profits at all and the defendants had spent the money they accumulated on luxury homes, jewelry and cars.
They had also financed more expos for attracting more victims. As early as 2016, victims began to face problems in withdrawing their funds.
They were given excuses and were also charged extravagant hidden fees at the time of withdrawal, such as 50% of the amount requested.
Some victims could not make withdrawals at all. The six individuals in question have now pled guilty to bank fraud, money fraud and wire fraud conspiracy amongst other charges.
The maximum sentence for these charges are 30 years, 20 years and 20 years, respectively.
