Nevada-based, defunct My Big Coin cryptocurrency The founder of his company was found guilty of inflicting more than $6 million in losses to investors by marketing and selling a fake virtual currency he claims was backed by $300 million in gold and other assets.
Randall Crater, 51, was found guilty of electronic fraud and illegal financial transactions by a federal jury in Boston on Thursday. District Court Judge Denise J. Casper adjourned the execution of the sentence to October 27. Crater was arrested and prosecuted in February 2019 after being sued by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission the previous year.
US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), bitcoin It wants to audit crypto assets that it claims are commodities such as
The Cryptocurrency He Claimed To Be Backed With $300 Million In Assets Was Fake
According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Crater founded his company in 2013 and offered payment services through a fake digital currency that he marketed to investors between 2014 and 2017.
The statement stated that Crater claimed to have sold “a fully-functioning cryptocurrency backed by $300 million in gold, oil and other valuable assets.”
He also scammed investors by telling them that My Big Coin had a partnership with MasterCard and that the fake digital currency could be exchanged for fiat or other virtual currencies. Crater spread these misrepresentations via social media, the internet, email and text messages, officials said.
During the plan, Crater “embezzled over $6 million in investor funds for his own personal gain and for property expenditures, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in antiques, art and jewelry,” the statement said.
US prosecutor Rachael S. Rollins said:
“Crater saw the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies as a chance to get rich quickly through flashy marketing tactics and an unscrupulous scam disguised with outright lies. As a result, Crater is another scammer that has made its way into the burgeoning cryptocurrency world.”
*Not investment advice.