The US District Court docket for the Jap District of New York is situated within the Brooklyn borough of New York Metropolis on January 18, 2019.
Drew Anger | Getty Pictures
Federal prosecutors on Friday introduced prices in opposition to a German businessman, alleging he scammed buyers out of greater than $150 million in a crypto fraud scheme.
Prosecutors stated Horst Jicha promoted USI Tech, the corporate he based and led as its CEO, as a crypto mining and buying and selling platform “accessible to the common retail investor.” However in truth, Jicha and two unnamed co-conspirators, each USI Tech executives, lured and defrauded buyers in a “multilevel advertising scheme,” prosecutors allege.
Authorities stated they arrested Jicha and unsealed a four-count indictment in opposition to him — securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud and cash laundering — after he entered in the USA for the primary time in additional than 5 years on December 23, within the column. to Miami for trip. He was arraigned in federal court docket in Brooklyn on Friday morning.
Prosecutors allege that the corporate falsely claimed on its web site, in social media posts and at in-person occasions that buyers may earn as a lot as 140% returns on crypto investments made with its platform.
Across the spring of 2017, Jicha and his co-conspirators started “aggressively selling” USI Tech, prosecutors stated. There have been dwell occasions, together with one in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, the place one among Jicha's co-conspirators claimed that USI Tech's legality was blessed by “prime SEC counsel,” in response to the accuse
In 2018, as regulators started to look at USI Tech, prosecutors alleged that Jicha terminated the corporate's operations in the USA, stopping buyers from withdrawing their cash. Since then, about $150 million of that cash has been transferred to accounts managed by Jicha, prosecutors stated Friday.
“It’s all the time tough when buyers have suffered losses from some dangerous actors,” Marissel Descalzo and David Tarras, Jicha's legal professionals, wrote in a press release. “We stay up for zealously defending the allegations in opposition to Mr. Jicha and bringing forth the details of his involvement with USI Tech within the hope that the dangerous actors will likely be delivered to justice.”
WATCH: How bitcoin misplaced profitable
Don't miss these tales from CNBC PRO:
