A record cryptocurrency case has seen the two accused prosecuted for defrauding investors of $22 million.
Two California men, Gabriel Hay, 23, of Beverly Hills, and Gavin Mayo, also 23, of Thousand Oaks, are the target of the indictment unsealed in a Los Angeles court.
The indictment, which comprises six counts, charges the men with defrauding investors of more than $22 million in cryptocurrency. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) has arrested Hay and Mayo.
Two California men charged with $22 million fraud
The pair enacted the scam through a series of what the Justice Department case referred to as “digital asset project rug pulls”. This fraud involves the creator or backer of a nonfungible token (NFT) or other digital asset project. The NFT is then used to drive investment from multiple backers and once they have made a substantial profit the originators of the NFT abandon the investment project and leave those who have spent their money in limbo.
Hay and Mayo allegedly deployed these investment and abandonment tactics on multiple occasions according to the indictment. They include “Vault of Gems, Faceless, Sinful Souls, Clout Coin, Dirty Dogs, Uncovered, MoonPortal, Squiggles, and Roost Coin. Hay and Mayo also allegedly used a variety of means to conceal their involvement in the fraudulent projects by falsely identifying other individuals or causing other individuals to be falsely identified as owners of the projects,” said the Justice Department report.
“Gabriel Hay and Gavin Mayo allegedly defrauded investors in digital asset projects of tens of millions of dollars and threatened an individual who attempted to expose their roles in these fraudulent schemes,” said Principal Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Fraudsters take advantage of new technologies and financial products to steal investors’ hard-earned money.”
Both men have been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud, and one count of stalking. They risk twenty years in prison on the counts of conspiracy to and commit wire fraud and five years on each count of stalking.
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