{"id":94160,"date":"2026-02-11T11:13:56","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=94160"},"modified":"2026-02-11T11:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:15:12","slug":"former-safemoon-ceo-sentenced-to-eight-years-and-7-5-million-fine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/former-safemoon-ceo-sentenced-to-eight-years-and-7-5-million-fine\/","title":{"rendered":"Former SafeMoon CEO Sentenced to Eight Years and $7.5 Million Fine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Eastern District of New York <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-edny\/pr\/ceo-digital-asset-company-safemoon-sentenced-100-months-prison-multi-million-dollar\">sentenced<\/a> former SafeMoon CEO Braden John Karony to eight years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to imprisonment, the 29-year-old founder must pay $7.5 million and transfer two residential properties to the authorities.<\/p>\n<p>In May, a jury <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/safemoon-founder-faces-up-to-45-years-for-investor-fraud\">found<\/a> Karony guilty of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and money laundering. According to the FBI, he misappropriated over $9 million of user funds, spending the money on luxury items.<\/p>\n<p>SafeMoon&#8217;s tokenomics included a 10% fee on each transaction. Half of this amount was supposed to be locked in a <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-are-liquidity-pools-and-how-do-they-work\">liquidity pool<\/a> to support the ecosystem, but Karony and his accomplices diverted these assets for personal use.<\/p>\n<p>With investor funds, the top manager purchased a mansion in Utah for $2.2 million, Audi R8, Tesla, and a custom Ford F-550 pickup truck.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in 2023, the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission also <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/founders-of-safemoon-charged-in-multi-million-dollar-scam\">charged<\/a> SafeMoon creator Kyle Nagy, who remains at large.<\/p>\n<p>In February 2025, the project&#8217;s CTO, Thomas Smith, <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/safemoon-cto-admits-guilt-in-200-million-crypto-fraud\">pleaded guilty<\/a> to two counts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Eastern District of New York sentenced former SafeMoon CEO Braden John Karony to eight years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"Former SafeMoon CEO sentenced to eight years and $7.5 million fine.","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1162,1269,1246,26],"class_list":["post-94160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-court-cases","tag-cryptocurrencies","tag-scammers","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"142","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"Former SafeMoon CEO sentenced to eight years and $7.5 million fine.","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94160","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=94160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94162,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94160\/revisions\/94162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}