Two Men Face Up to 40 Years in Prison for $650 Million Cryptocurrency Fraud

Investors deposited cryptocurrency, mostly through personal wallets controlled by the project’s management. Sims served as the face of the company and publicly touted the platform’s high profitability and reliability, while Reynoso was responsible for operations in Latin America and parts of the United States, including Puerto Rico. He spread false information about OmegaPro being licensed and that the platform allegedly did not comply with the laws of any country.

To attract clients, the defendants actively used luxury marketing, including displaying the OmegaPro logo on the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai and posting expensive cars and vacation photos on social networks.

According to the investigation, thousands of investors lost their investments in the amount of over $650 million. In January 2023, after a report of a hacker attack on OmegaPro, they were promised to transfer funds to another platform, Broker Group, but users were unable to withdraw money from either, since the assets were transferred to a crypto wallet controlled by the organizers of the fraud.

The men are accused of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. For each count, they face up to 20 years in prison, that is, up to 40 years in total.

Previously, large-scale crypto scams were also uncovered in Spain, with losses of around €460 million and thousands of investors affected. This case highlights the growing risks for crypto market participants and the need to be extremely careful with investment projects that promise too high returns.

The emergence of such large-scale schemes reminds us of the importance of careful verification of projects and mistrust of overly attractive promises, especially when it comes to cryptocurrencies and decentralized platforms.