SAN FRANCISCO—Jerry Ji Guo, of San Francisco was sentenced in U.S. District Courtroom in San Jose on Tuesday, January 26. Guo was concerned in a scheme to defraud his purchasers of money and cryptocurrency in reference to an preliminary coin providing.
He admitted to representing himself as an preliminary coin providing. Guo promised purchasers that he would carry out advertising and marketing and publicity providers, however embezzled the purchasers’ money. A federal grand jury indicted Guo November 15, 2018 and charged him with eight counts of wire fraud.
In a press launch, FBI San Francisco Particular Agent in Cost Craig D. Truthful acknowledged:
“The FBI is tasked with pursuing crimes and the assorted means and strategies that criminals use to commit these crimes. Within the monetary sector, cryptocurrency has emerged as a big risk because it affords criminals with an area to conduct exercise that’s notably tough to hint and detect. On this case, the FBI relied upon companions within the personal sector to reply appropriately to authorized course of so the FBI might make efforts to find and seize stolen cryptocurrency.”
Guo pleaded responsible to at least one depend and the remaining counts have been dismissed. Along with pleading responsible, he agreed to cooperate with the federal government within the identification and return of property by the forfeiture course of. In his plea settlement he stipulated to the forfeiture of roughly $200,000 in money, 350 Bitcoin, and almost 7,000 models of Ether, the crypto coin that powers the Ethereum platform.
On November 14, 2019, america authorities obtained a stipulated utility for a preliminary order of forfeiture and likewise obtained warrants to grab the stolen money and cryptocurrency. On February 26, 2020, the federal government obtained a closing order of forfeiture in opposition to the stolen property and has the flexibility to return the stolen property. The present worth of the money that was stolen is estimated to be greater than $20 million.
Guo is sentenced to pay $4,392,636.14 in restitution and he has been ordered to do a six-month jail time period. Along with his jail time period, he’s ordered to do a three-year interval of supervised launch.