Finance & Economics

Coin Signals trader pleads guilty to $5M Ponzi scheme

He’s facing up to 10 years in jail

Ponzi scheme

Coin Signals trader pleads guilty to $5M Ponzi scheme. Source: pexels.com

25-year-old Jeremy Spence who’s behind the $5 million digital currency Ponzi scheme pleaded guilty to defrauding over 170 investors.

Jeremy reported making approximately 150% in monthly returns from digital currency investment funds. These claims were made to investors between November 2017 and April 2019.

While initially Spence operated at a loss, he made false representations of the financial performance of his investments to the investors. He then used misappropriated crypto valued at $2 million to pay investors profits.

Spence pleaded guilty to commodities fraud charges in a US court which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. While the digital currency market is attractive to investors, the market is marred by multiple risks such as fraud.

Spence peddled fraudulent investments from his Rhode Island home for 17 months. To prove the wild profits claims, he used false assets that were under management. He also accepted contributions from Ether and Bitcoin to invest in three funds that made up Coin Signals.

Coin Signals Bitmex Fund, the most active fund, was known by investors as the CS Mex Fund. In January 2018, Spence claimed to have generated 148% in profits. However, he made a net loss during this period.

Spence was caught up by the Feds in January after an investigation by the Commodities Fraud Task Force and the FBI. He was then charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of commodities fraud. This carries a 10-20 years jail time respectively. The commodities fraud plea is yet to be sentenced.

We’ve reported that Bank of America introduced a fraud prevention tool.

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