Oklahoma man sentenced to 5 years in prison for $9.4 million cryptocurrency pyramid scheme

Federal prosecutors have sentenced an Oklahoma man to five years in prison after admitting to running a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment scheme that ran for eight months before failing.

Travis Ford, 36, was sentenced Thursday to 60 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $1 million in forfeiture and more than $170,000 in restitution, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday.

Mr. Ford will also receive three years of supervised release following his sentence. He pleaded guilty in January to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

As co-founder and CEO, Ford promoted Wolf Capital as a high-yield trading platform, touting daily gains of “1% to 2% per day, or approximately 547% annually,” according to charging documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice late last year.

Wolf Capital “received approximately $9.4 million in investments from approximately 2,800 investors,” the filing says.

From January 2023 to approximately August 2023, Ford “solicited investments through the company’s website, other social media, and internet-based promotional activities,” according to a summary by the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. Ford “presented himself as a sophisticated trader capable of achieving high profits,” even though he knew it was “impossible to consistently achieve such profits,” the statement said.

Along with his co-conspirators, Ford “made these false promises to induce the public to invest their funds,” prosecutors wrote.

Details of Thursday’s ruling were first reported by local media. tulsa world.

Ford allegedly told investigators that the Wolf Capital Crypto operation “paid” investors between $4 million and $5 million before it collapsed, and that the remaining funds were lost to his own trading activity.

In a written plea agreement mentioned in local news reports, Mr. Ford acknowledged that he “does not believe it is possible to consistently achieve these investment returns.”

One victim, who invested more than $100,000, testified in court that he believed Ford’s argument and hoped the judge would impose a harsher penalty. Local media reported that Ford responded by saying he took “full responsibility” for the damage and was “committed to making things right.”

decryption contacted the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma to request a final sentence and confirm sentencing details.

In a statement to local news outlets, a Ford representative explained that their client had “engaged with the European Bloc gang known as 0x” through the internet and then “waded knee-deep into this mess.”

It’s worth noting that “0x” is a common prefix in the cryptocurrency community, often used for online handles or shorthand to indicate affinity within cryptocurrency circles. The prefix will appear as Ethereum address, smart contract Identifiers and other hex-encoded data extracted from encryption.

decryption has reached out to Ford’s legal representatives for comment and for details on the individuals and groups they referred to as 0x.