Trio Involved in Crypto Fraud Sentenced to Prison, Ordered To Forfeit $100,000,000 in Bitcoin and Other Assets
Three of the perpetrators behind the AirBit Club cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme are now facing jail time and forfeiture of millions worth of illegally acquired assets.
AirBit Club is an international fraud and money-laundering ring that deceived investors by posing as a crypto mining and trading company.
District Judge George B. Daniels sentenced Scott Hughes, Cecilia Millan and Karina Chairez on Tuesday for their role in the scheme, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
The development comes after AirBit co-founders Pablo Renato Rodriguez and Gutemberg Dos Santos were sentenced to 12 years in prison on September 26th.
Explains U.S. Attorney Damian Williams,
“Rodriguez, Dos Santos, Hughes, Millan, and Chairez traveled throughout the United States and around the world to places in Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe, where they hosted lavish expos and small community presentations aimed at convincing victims to purchase AirBit Club memberships. In furtherance of the AirBit Club Scheme, the victims were fraudulently induced to buy memberships in cash, including in the Southern District of New York.”
Hughes, a lawyer who previously represented AirBit’s founders in another investment scheme known as Vizinova, and who laundered approximately $18 million of AirBit’s proceeds, was sentenced to spend 18 months in prison.
Millan, who served as AirBit’s senior-level promoter, was ordered to stay behind bars for five years. Chairez, also a senior-level promoter of the scheme, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison.
The defendants were also collectively ordered to forfeit the proceeds of the scheme, which include US currency, Bitcoin (BTC) and real estate worth around $100 million.
Says Damian,
“At the top-tier of promoters, Millan and Chairez for years aggressively solicited investments from and misled hardworking and unsophisticated investors to line their own pockets. Hughes abused his position as an attorney to launder millions in AirBit Club fraud proceeds and to give AirBit Club the false appearance of legality. Pyramid schemes like AirBit Club would not be possible without facilitators like Hughes, Millan, and Chairez.”
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