$40.7 Million Fine: Judge Rules Ponzi Scheme on Bitcoin Savings and Trust
There are several high profile criminal and civil cases involving Bitcoin in the United States. In some of these the prosecution is clearly applying law to Bitcoin transactions that might not apply. But in the case of Trenton Shavers and his Bitcoin Savings and Trust this turned out not to be the case, even though his attorneys tried to make it look like it. A US Federal Judge has ruled in case is SEC v. Shavers et al, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas, No. 13-00416 that the Bitcoin Savings and Trust was indeed a criminal enterprise and Shavers was guilty of running a Ponzi....
Related News
Trendon Shavers earned a lenient sentence through good faith efforts to right the wrongs he did while improperly managing the Bitcoin Savings & Trust, Bitcoin’s first federal securities case, according to his sentencing judge. That’s news the Bitcoin Community, which has long viewed Shavers as a no more than a fraudster, likely won’t heed. Bitcoin Savings & Trust, initially called First Pirate Savings & Trust, ultimately stripped investors of $4.5 million. Shavers faced 40 years in prison before a plea deal brought his maximum sentence to 41 months. Shavers’ $4.5 million ponzi....
Trendon Shavers, the man who the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said was running a bitcoin Ponzi scheme, has been ordered to pay a $40 million dollar fine by U. S. Magistrate Judge Amos L. Mazzant for his founding of the "Bitcoin Savings and Trust (BTCST)" organization, which was nothing more than a scam for its users. From a complaint filed by the SEC last year (as noted by Inside Bitcoins): From at least September 2011 to September 2012, Shavers, operating under the Internet name "pirateat40," offered and sold BTCST investments over the Internet, raising more than 700,000 BTC....
Trendon Shavers, the person convicted of operating a Bitcoin Ponzi scheme through Bitcoin Savings & Trust receives 18 month prison sentence. The person behind the first ever Bitcoin securities fraud in the United States is going to spend the next 18 months in prison. Trendon Shavers, the founder of Bitcoin Savings and Trust, a proven ponzi company, was convicted for luring people into investing 764,000 bitcoins (~$4.5 million at the time of investment) with the promise of 7% weekly returns. He later disappeared with the raised sum, reportedly spending it to pay early investors, and for....
A judge in Texas has ruled that bitcoin is a currency or form of money, which gives the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) the go-ahead to sue Ponzi scheme operator Trendon Shavers. A document signed by US magistrate judge Amos L. Mazzant details the SEC's case against Shavers, founder and operator of Bitcoin Savings and Trust (BTCST), formerly known as First Pirate Savings & Trust. Shavers enticed people to invest in BTCST with the promise of 1% interest per day. Some investors suffered losses, totalling 263,104 BTC, which equates to around $25 million, based on current exchange....
A South Florida federal district judge has sentenced Jose Angel Aman to 84 months in prison for his role in perpetrating a $25 million diamond Ponzi scheme. In addition, the judge ordered Aman to pay over $23 million in restitution to victims who invested in his diamond cutting business and the purported diamond-backed crypto token. Fraudulent Claims and Promises In a statement, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says Aman and his unnamed partners successfully recruited hundreds of people after convincing them “to invest in diamond contracts.” The statement adds that the....