Dwayne Golden, a 57-year-old man from Pennsylvania, has been sentenced to over eight years in federal prison for running a Ponzi scheme. The U.S. Department of Justice announced on June 28 that he led a group that defrauded investors of more than $40 million through fake crypto companies. He was also ordered to forfeit millions in illegal earnings. Convicted Criminals Siphoned $40M in a Ponzi Scheme According to the DOJ, from April to August 2017, Golden and his co-conspirators, Gregory Aggesen and Marquis Demacking Egerton, operated three fake cryptocurrency firms: EmpowerCoin, ECoinPlus, and Jet-Coin. These companies claimed to invest in crypto markets and promised high, fixed returns to investors. They told investors that the platforms were making profits through trading activities in other overseas countries. However, the companies were not offering any real services. They were not trading any cryptocurrency. Instead, they used money from new investors to pay earlier ones or kept the money for themselves. This type of scam is known as a Ponzi scheme. The group raised more than $40 million through this scam. In a recent statement, U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said that Golden and his partners took advantage of the public’s interest in crypto to make their scam appear legitimate. Many investors believed they were investing in new and profitable projects. In reality, they were being misled. Crypto Scammers Tried to Hide Their Tracks After the companies failed, Golden, Aggesen, and another partner, William White, tried to block federal investigations. They destroyed important evidence and gave false or misleading information to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a federal grand jury. These efforts to cover up their actions lasted from July 2017 to March 2022. As a result, Golden must also forfeit approximately $2.46 million in assets gained through the illegal scheme, in addition to serving his prison sentence. All four individuals involved in the case pleaded guilty. William White has already been sentenced to 30 months in prison, and Egerton is still pending as of June 27. Golden and his partners were officially charged in March 2022 with multiple crimes. This includes fraud and money laundering for their roles in the scam involving EmpowerCoin, ECoinPlus, and Jet-Coin. A Growing Threat in Crypto While large Ponzi schemes like this still happen, experts say scammers are now moving toward more targeted methods . These include pig butchering scams, where victims are fooled through fake online relationships. Another method is address poisoning, where scammers copy crypto wallet addresses to steal money. In 2023, blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs reported that crypto pyramid and Ponzi schemes resulted in losses of up to $7.8 billion in the previous year. The case of Dwayne Golden serves as a strong warning to investors always to research carefully and be cautious of offers that seem too good to be true. The post Crypto Fraudster Bags 8 Years in Prison for $40M Ponzi Scheme appeared first on TheCoinrise.com .
