March 2022 noticed JetCoin scammers Dwayne Golden, Mardy Eger and Gregory Aggesen arrested.
The trio have been indicted on prison costs associated to their operation of the JetCoin Ponzi scheme. Concurrently, the CFTC additionally filed paralell civil fraud costs.
What I didn’t know up till at the moment was the CFTC additionally investigated confederate James Ward.
Ward (proper) escaped indictment and arrest. He additionally escaped civil costs by the CFTC.
As per the CFTC’s investigation into Ward;
In or round Might 2017, Ward, along with accomplices, started doing enterprise as JetCoin and launched the JetCoin web site.
Ward drafted the JetCoin web site’s content material. Ward additionally registered the JetCoin web site by means of a registration firm positioned in Arizona, to an handle in Arkansas.
Ward, collectively together with his accomplices, managed the web site and the purported funding alternative introduced by, and have been principals of, the JetCoin scheme.
Clients have been promised assured earnings based mostly on buying and selling of Bitcoin, a digital foreign money that may be a commodity in interstate commerce, finished by a crew {of professional} merchants or by recruiting extra prospects into the purported funding alternatives.
Nevertheless, the purported funding alternative was, in truth, a Ponzi scheme through which payouts of supposed earnings to prospects surely consisted of different prospects’ misappropriated funds.
As a substitute of buying and selling buyer investments, Ward and his accomplices misappropriated lots of the Bitcoin for themselves.
BehindMLM reviewed JetCoin in June 2017, appropriately figuring out it as a Ponzi scheme.
When Ward turned conscious of a separate FTC investigation right into a JetCoin promoter in 2018, he colluded to delete subpoenaed proof.
On or about June 5, 2018, certainly one of Ward’s accomplices obtained a subpoena from the Federal Commerce Fee in reference to an investigation regarding no less than one promoter of JetCoin.
That confederate solicited Ward’s recommendation on how to answer the subpoena. Ward suggested that confederate to delete any paperwork associated to JetCoin on the confederate’s laptop and offered directions on how to take action, at one level explaining that that confederate ought to search “jet” in his emails and delete all the outcomes.
Ward additionally advised that confederate on a number of events that, in his view, the confederate ought to both mild his laptop on fireplace or throw it in a lake.
Ultimately, that confederate was in a position to delete the contents of his laptop, and submitted the cleaned laptop to the FTC on or about June 27, 2018.
All in all JetCoin scammed shoppers out of ~$21.7 million. Ward and his accomplices misappropriated $7.8 million, of which Ward himself obtained $509,000.
Reasonably than defend himself in opposition to the CFTC’s allegations, Ward opted to settle the CFTC’s then preliminary case.
Ward’s settlement order was issued by the CFTC on March eighth, 2022. As a part of Ward’s settlement, he admitted to the entire CFTC’s findings in opposition to him.
Ward was additionally
completely prohibited from, instantly or not directly, participating in buying and selling on or topic to the principles of any registered entity, and all registered entities shall refuse Ward buying and selling privileges.
As to disgorgement and a civil penalty, the CFTC is free to file for financial reduction at any time when it sees match.
Presently the CFTC’s civil case in opposition to Golden, Eger and Aggesen has been stayed, pending the end result of prison proceedings.
I’ve been monitoring JetCoin proceedings month-to-month however, for the reason that April 2022 keep, there hasn’t been something substantial to report on.
James Ward, in violation of his CFTC settlement, continued to defraud shoppers by means of Full Velocity.
Launched in February 2022, Full Velocity was one other purported crypto buying and selling scheme.
Full Velocity collapsed in Might 2022, producing upward of 90% losses for buyers. Ward tried to reboot Full Velocity in June 2022, nevertheless the reboot doesn’t appear to have gone anyplace.
Full Velocity’s web site continues to be up however SimilarWeb is monitoring negligible site visitors.