{"id":58389,"date":"2022-02-26T10:29:10","date_gmt":"2022-02-26T08:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=58389"},"modified":"2025-09-04T16:31:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T13:31:13","slug":"bitconnect-founder-indicted-for-2-4-billion-crypto-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/bitconnect-founder-indicted-for-2-4-billion-crypto-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"BitConnect founder indicted for $2.4 billion crypto fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A San Diego federal grand jury indicted BitConnect founder Satish Kumbhani on $2.4 billion Ponzi-scheme fraud, according to the <a href=\\\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/bitconnect-founder-indicted-global-24-billion-cryptocurrency-scheme\\\">\u041c\u0438\u043d\u0438\u0441\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0441\u0442\u0432\u043e \u044e\u0441\u0442\u0438\u0446\u0438\u0438 \u0421\u0428\u0410<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\\n\\n<\/p>\n<p>According to court documents, Kumbhani and his co-conspirators promised investors substantial guaranteed returns through trading in the volatile cryptocurrency markets.<\/p>\n<p>\\n\\n<\/p>\n<p>The BitConnect project operated as a Ponzi scheme, paying earlier investors with money from later participants, the indictment states. In total, Kumbhani and his associates allegedly received about $2.4 billion from investors.<\/p>\n<p>\\n\\n<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Department of Justice added that the defendant allegedly created false market demand for the BitConnect Coin (BCC) through a network of promoters.<\/p>\n<p>\\n\\n<\/p>\n<p>According to the department, the defendant is a citizen of India and remains at large. He faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted on all counts.<\/p>\n<p>\\n\\n<\/p>\n<p>As previously reported, in January 2018 BitConnect faced accusations of running a pyramid scheme. At the height of its popularity, the token price exceeded $500, helping it reach the top 10 of CoinMarketCap.<\/p>\n<p>\\n\\n<\/p>\n<p>In September 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/bitconnect-scam-promoter-to-repay-24-million-to-investors\">filed a civil lawsuit against BitConnect<\/a>, Satish Kumbhani, former director Glenn Arcaro and the affiliated company Future Money.<\/p>\n<p>\\n\\n<\/p>\n<p>The regulator accused the group of fraudulent and unregistered securities offerings totalling $2 billion through the project&#8217;s lending program. In December, Arcaro <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/former-bitconnect-director-barred-for-life-from-participating-in-icos\">permanently barred from participating<\/a> in the <span data-descr=\\\"initial coin offering\\\" class=\\\"old_tooltip\\\">ICO<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>\\n\\n<\/p>\n<p>Follow ForkLog&#8217;s bitcoin news on our <a href=\\\"\/\/telegram.me\/forklog\\\" target=\\\"\u201c_blank\u201d\\\" rel=\\\"\u201cnofollow\u201d noopener\\\">Telegram<\/a> \u2014 cryptocurrency news, prices and analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal grand jury in San Diego indicted BitConnect founder Satish Kumbhani for $2.4 billion Ponzi-scheme fraud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[708,1162,1154,1163],"class_list":["post-58389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bitconnect","tag-court-cases","tag-crimes","tag-ponzi-schemes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"15","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58391,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58389\/revisions\/58391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}