Hashflare founders Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin pled guilty to wire fraud conspiracy today. The Department of Justice (DoJ) struck down nearly 20 charges against the pair, and they hope to receive lighter sentences through their cooperation.
The prosecutors seriously overplayed their hand, totally discredited their star witness, and generally turned the proceedings into a farce.
HashFlare Guilty Plea Avoids Worst Outcomes
Before it all came crashing down, HashFlare was ostensibly a reputable cloud mining business. However, Estonian co-founders Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin were arrested in 2022 and charged with defrauding investors out of $575 million.
After a lengthy legal battle, HashFlare’s co-founders pled guilty to wire fraud conspiracy today.
“As Ivan admitted today, one of his and Sergei’s businesses promised to mine crypto and did in fact mine crypto, but not as much as it had promised. Instead, it sometimes repaid customers with crypto it had purchased on the open market. Importantly, however, as we will show at sentencing, no customer has suffered any harm,” said a defense lawyer.
In short, the HashFlare executives admitted that they were guilty of fraud, but made strenuous efforts to show the limited impact of their actions. They advertised HashFlare as an easy way to mine crypto from home, but had nowhere near enough resources to fulfill these promises.
Instead, they used customer money to buy assets, and pass them off as mining rewards.
The FBI
Go to Source to See Full Article
Author: Landon Manning
Tip BTC Newswire with Cryptocurrency
Donate Bitcoin to BTC Newswire
Donate Bitcoin Cash to BTC Newswire
Donate Ethereum to BTC Newswire
Donate Litecoin to BTC Newswire
Donate Monero to BTC Newswire
Donate ZCash to BTC Newswire
