A federal grand jury in San Diego returned an indictment today charging the founder of BitConnect with orchestrating a global Ponzi scheme. BitConnect is an alleged fraudulent cryptocurrency investment platform that reached a peak market capitalization of $3.4 billion.
According to court documents, Satish Kumbhani, 36, of Hemal, India, the founder of BitConnect, misled investors about BitConnect’s “Lending Program.” Under this program, Kumbhani and his co-conspirators touted BitConnect’s purported proprietary technology, known as the “BitConnect Trading Bot” and “Volatility Software,” as being able to generate substantial profits and guaranteed returns by using investors’ money to trade on the volatility of cryptocurrency exchange markets. As alleged in the indictment, however, BitConnect operated as a Ponzi scheme by paying earlier BitConnect investors with money from later investors. In total, Kumbhani and his co-conspirators obtained approximately $2.4 billion from investors.
The indictment further alleges that, after operating for approximately one year, Kumbhani abruptly shut down the Lending Program. Kumbhani then directed his network of promoters to fraudulently manipulate and prop up the price of BitConnect’s digital currency, a commodity known as BitConnect Coin (BCC), to create the false appearance of legitimate market demand for BCC. Kumbhani and his co-conspirators also concealed the location and control of the fraud proceeds obtained from investors by commingling, cycling, and exchanging the funds through BitConnect’s cluster of cryptocurrency wallets and various internationally based cryptocurrency exchanges.
According to the indictment, to avoid regulatory scrutiny and oversight of BitConnect’s cryptocurrency offering, Kumbhani evaded U.S. regulations governing the financial industry, including those enforced by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). For example, although BitConnect operated a money…
