LOS ANGELES (CNS) — On Friday, a Beverly Hills resident and another man were charged in an indictment with defrauding investors of more than $22 million in virtual currency through various online scams.
Gabriel Hay, 23, of Beverly Hills, and Gavin Mayo, 23, of Thousand Oaks, each face one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud, and stalking, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. He was charged with one crime. .
Prosecutors say the pair engaged in a series of schemes in which creators of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and other digital assets solicited people to invest in their projects, then abruptly abandoned the projects but kept their funds. It is said that he was involved in “Ragpur''.
According to U.S. prosecutors, Hay and Mayo are accused of sponsoring several of these projects between May 2021 and May 2024, making various false statements and claims to lure investors. There is. In one case, the pair promoted the “Vault of Gems NFT” project but “are suspected of raising millions of dollars from investors before abandoning the project,” prosecutors said in a statement.
The two also allegedly tried to hide their involvement in parts of the project, instead identifying others as owners and trying to hide their activities. Prosecutors said that when a project manager involved in the NFT project exposed Hay and Mayo as the people behind it, the defendants “launched a campaign of harassment against the project manager, sending and receiving messages to the project manager and his parents.” “I let him do it,” he claimed. with the purpose of blackmailing him and his family and causing them great emotional distress. ”
The defendants each face up to 20 years in prison for conspiracy and wire fraud, and five years in prison for stalking.
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