Brooklyn federal court has sentenced crypto scammer Dwayne Golden to more than eight years in prison for orchestrating a $40 million Ponzi scheme disguised as a digital asset investment operation.
The court handed down a 97-month sentence after prosecutors proved that Golden misled investors for years with false promises and no real trading activity.
Fake crypto ventures and investor losses
Golden had three other independent businesses, respectively EmpowerCoin, ECoinPlus, and Jet-Coin. These agencies promised investors a fixed income rate by saying they used their capital to trade crypto in foreign countries. There was, however, no real trading and blockchain infrastructure in place. According to prosecutors, the scheme was a classic Ponzi setup and the only thing done by the scheme was to rebrand it in modern crypto as a way of attracting innocent victims.
The funds collected were not invested but were either used to pay earlier investors or taken by the conspirators for personal use. The court ordered the forfeiture of approximately $2.46 million in proceeds, although victim restitution will be decided later.
Obstruction of justice by Golden and Co-Conspirators
From 2017 to 2022, Golden and his associates worked to conceal their activities from regulators. The group included Gregory Aggesen, William White, and Marquis “Mardy Eger” Egerton. Prosecutors revealed that the defendants destroyed documents, provided false statements to federal agencies, and lied under oath during grand jury proceedings.
All four individuals have pleaded guilty. William White has already received a 30-month sentence, while Aggesen and Egerton are awaiting sentencing. The court found that their coordinated efforts to obstruct multiple federal investigations contributed to an extended prison term for Golden.
Fraud losses climb as crypto scams grow
According to the Federal Trade Commission recently, Americans have lost more than 12.5 billion dollars to fraud in year 2024 as compared to the year 2023 which recorded a 25-percentum increment in the lost money. The number of fraud complaints retained the same trend as in 2023, but more subjects reported financial losses. The investment scam was the leading category with a loss of 5.7 billion and imposter scams amounted to 2.95 billion dollars worth of losses. Consumers lost the most through bank transfers and cryptocurrency-related transactions. Issues with online shopping ranked second in fraud reports, followed by scams involving fake business and job opportunities, which cost consumers $750.6 million.
Meanwhile, the total global crypto market cap rose slightly on Saturday to nearly $3.3 trillion. Bitcoin’s price climbed over 3% in the past week and was trading at $107,362, with a 24-hour volume of $86.4 billion, down 14%