As Cryptocurrencies continually gain more traction within the media and the general populace, they have also continued to gain a rather undesirable momentum amongst the criminal organizations within society. Illegal groups seem to realize the opportunities that Cryptocurrencies advance not just for transferring vast sums of money around the world effortlessly, but also for making large amounts of money due to the desire of many to cash in on the next big thing. However, luckily as with most things in life, the wheel has turned and just recently a few men hoping to make easy money off of unsuspecting investors who posed as Bitcoin operators were caught out.
The Case Details
In the New York Eastern District Court, Judge Sandra J. Feuerstein has given her judgment on a case initially launched at the beginning of the year by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission or CFTC. The accused comprised of Dillon Michael Dean and The Entrepreneurs Headquarters Limited or TEH, who the CFTC claimed had been operating Binary offerings as well as illegal Bitcoin scheme within the US.
TEH is not an American company, TEH is initially from Wales and the United Kingdom, and have been in existence since early 2017. Since the inception of TEH the company has not registered itself with the CFTC for any of its dealings. Dean Michael Dean was the original founder of TEH and right up until the beginning of this year acted as the only managing director, and chief operations officer for the company making him fully liable for all of the company’s decisions.
How The Scam Worked
During the month of April 2017, Dean began to receive crowdsourced funds for a hierarchy-based marketing plan that was promoted on his website as The Entrepreneurs Headquarters otherwise known as THE. Dean claimed to have had great success previously with trading, however when he was challenged on the stand as to his skills of procuring good trading options for clients, it came out that he was well aware that he did not have the skills and was aware that he had not been accurate in his portrayal of his abilities.
In addition, Dean also had several pictorial descriptions on his website showcasing the multitudinous profit streams that his clientele could expect to earn and that he had generated in the past. The company only allowed the clientele to make payments to them via their personal Bitcoin wallets.
However, TEH then went to post an announcement in August 2017 on their Facebook wall stating that the website had been hacked; however this was false. After a while, clients began to request for TEH to return their money to them, but the customers never heard back from the company. A total of $499 264,04 from 127 clients have had their main investment embezzled by TEH.
The Final Judgement
Yet, all of this was not enough for Dean who began another company operating in a very similar manner to TEH known as Real Trade Profits. The court found Dean and TEH guilty; the accused will have to pay reparations to the value of $432 184,79 and any interest accrued as well as an amount to the CFTC.
