{"id":60759,"date":"2023-10-04T06:41:04","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T10:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/?p=60759"},"modified":"2023-10-04T06:41:11","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T10:41:11","slug":"airbit-ponzi-scheme-all-execs-sentenced-except-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/airbit-ponzi-scheme-all-execs-sentenced-except-one\/","title":{"rendered":"AirBit Ponzi Scheme: All Execs Sentenced Except One"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The US District Court for the Southern District of New York has sentenced key individuals behind the AirBit Club cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme<\/a>, except co-founder Dos Santos, whose sentence is scheduled for Oct. 4, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"AirBit
AirBit Ponzi Scheme: All Execs Sentenced Except One<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On October 3, the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced the sentencing of three of the five surviving defendants in the AirBit case, including Scott Hughes, Cecilia Millan, and Karina Chairez. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After pleading guilty to money laundering<\/a> and other offenses in the AirBit case in early 2023, all three defendants received their sentences months later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hughes was sentenced to 18 months for allegedly laundering approximately $18 million in AirBit Club fraud proceeds. A senior-level AirBit Club promoter was sentenced to five years in prison. Another senior-level AirBit Club promoter, Chairez, was sentenced to one year and one day in jail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hughes was also sentenced to three years of probation supervision. Millan and Chairez were sentenced to three years and three months, respectively, of supervised release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Late in 2015, the AirBit Club initiative was promoted as a “multi-level marketing club” in the cryptocurrency industry. The defendants used enticing presentations to convince investors that AirBit Club guaranteed daily returns from cryptocurrency mining and trading<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, instead of financing AirBit's promoted crypto operations \u2014 which was never the case \u2014 $100 million of investor funds went into the pockets of the company's founders and promoters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite early 2016 user complaints about withdrawal delays and concealed fees, AirBit Club was able to continue its fraudulent activity through 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
AirBit Club presentation by Cecilia Millan from 2019. Source: YouTube<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

U.S. attorney Damien Williams, in announcing the sentences, emphasized that Hughes, Millan, and Chairez each played a crucial role in perpetuating the AirBit Club Ponzi scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“At the top level of promoters, Millan and Chairez aggressively solicited and misled hardworking and unsophisticated investors for years to line their own pockets,” Williams said, adding:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cToday\u2019s sentences send a message that anyone who facilitates cryptocurrency investment schemes \u2014 not only those at the very top of the pyramid \u2014 will face serious consequences for such crimes.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In late September 2023, Pablo Rodriquez\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n <\/g>\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n <\/clipPath>\r\n <\/defs><\/svg><\/span><\/a>, co-founder of the AirBit Club, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Dos Santos, another co-founder who has pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, and bank fraud, is scheduled to be sentenced on October 4, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santos will be sentenced last out of a total of six defendants in the AirBit Club case. According to reports, Jackie Aguilar, who pled guilty in February 2023, died in May, a few weeks before her sentencing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US District Court for the Southern District of New York has sentenced key individuals behind the AirBit Club cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, except co-founder Dos Santos, whose sentence is scheduled for Oct. 4, 2023. On October 3, the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced the sentencing of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":60784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11476],"tags":[16635,4201],"class_list":["post-60759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hacks-and-scams","tag-airbit-club","tag-ponzi-scheme"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-10.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}