Pablo Renato Rodriguez, co-founder of global cryptocurrency fraud ring AirBit Club, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
The sentence was announced by Damian Williams, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Rodriguez, along with Gutemberg Dos Santos, tricked individuals into investing in AirBit Club, a purported cryptocurrency mining and trading company.
According to the Department of Justice, the duo ran a sophisticated money laundering operation to hide their illicit profits from AirBit Club. Co-defendants Dos Santos, Scott Hughes, Cecilia Millan and Karina Chairez have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
The co-defendants were ordered to seize their fraudulent proceeds from AirBit Club, which included assets such as dollars, Bitcoin and real estate, currently worth approximately $100 million.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Rodriguez was the co-founder and leader of an international multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that manipulated mostly inexperienced investors with false promises of cryptocurrency trading and mining investments.
Rather than investing on behalf of investors, Rodriguez concealed the victims' funds in a complex laundering scheme using Bitcoin, an attorney escrow account, and international shell and fake companies.
Rodriguez and Dos Santos founded AirBit Club together in 2015. They coordinated a scheme in which aggrieved investors were encouraged to invest in AirBit Club with the promise of guaranteed profits in exchange for cash investments in club memberships.
*This is not investment advice.