AirBit Club 'ponzi' co-founder gets 12 years prison
The co-founder of AirBit Club — a cryptocurrency pyramid scheme that swindled investors of over $100 million — has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in a $100 million "pyramid scheme" that purported to be involved in crypto mining.
The sentencing comes nearly seven months after Rodriguez — the co-founder of AirBit Club — pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy charges in a United States District Court in March.
In a Sept. 26 statement, Damian Williams, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York said Rodriguez “preyed” on unsophisticated investors with false promises that their funds were invested into legitimate cryptocurrency trading and mining operations.
District Court Judge George B. Daniels imposed an additional three years of supervised release for Rodriguez, which will follow his 12-year prison sentence.
.@HSINewYork's El Dorado Task Force, the largest anti-money laundering task force in the US, is proud to have played a vital role in delivering justice to the victims of Pablo Renato Rodriguez and the fraudulent "AirBit Club” Ponzi Scheme #HomelandSecurityInvestigations #HSINY https://t.co/UVco4ai3rI
The convicted fraudster was ordered to pay a forfeiture of $65 million and to forfeit other items, including a total of 3,800 Bitcoins (BTC) (worth $100 million), Rodriguez’s Irvine residence in California, $900,000 in U.S. dollars seized from the property and nearly $1 million previously held in escrow for a Gulfstream Jet.
The other defendants — Dos Santos, Scott Hughes, Cecilia Millan and Karina Chairez have also pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing verdicts.
Related: How to tell if a cryptocurrency project is a Ponzi scheme
AirBit Club was launched in 2015. Prospective
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