An Arizona man who masterminded a $13 million crypto Ponzi scheme pleaded guilty this week to money laundering and conspiracy to obstruct justice charges.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says Vincent Anthony Mazzotta Jr., 54, schemed with his co-defendant David Saffron and others to fraudulently promise investors high-yield profits from crypto investments that pretended to rely on automated trading robots powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

Mazzotta Jr. lured investors by convincing them to sink money into multiple crypto investment companies. When those companies disappeared with the investors’ capital, he went one step further and created a fake government entity called the Federal Crypto Reserve (FCR), which solicited thousands of additional dollars from victims by pretending to investigate those same firms.

The DOJ says Mazzotta Jr. also obstructed justice after Saffron’s initial arrest by destroying evidence at his co-defendant’s apartment, and he attempted to falsify the records of his business, Runway Beauty Inc., to hide his participation in the fraud from a federal grand jury.

Bill Essayli, US Attorney for the Central District of California, warns that criminals like to use the “relative novelty” of crypto assets to prey on victims.

Mazzotta Jr. faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on the money laundering charge and five years for conspiring to obstruct justice.

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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

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A fraudster who drained hundreds of thousands of dollars from an elderly victim’s account is now staring at the possibility of spending decades behind bars.

Cuban national Michel Duarte Suarez has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and mail fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft after stealing about $803,000 from his victim’s bank account over a four-month period.

Court documents show that Suarez told a confidential informant in March 2022 that he had access to the account of an 82-year-old victim.

While living in Panama at the time, the scammer wrote and sent checks to South Florida with instructions to his co-conspirators to encash the checks and wire 50% of the funds to Suarez’s Miami-based firm, Online Electronics. Authorities say that Suarez forged the checks to resemble the signature of the victim displayed on their signature card for the same bank account.

Suarez was arrested in January 2025 in Panama and was extradited to South Florida to face the charges. For his crimes, he could spend 30 years behind bars plus a mandatory consecutive two-year sentence to any imprisonment term handed down by a judge.

The fraudster is slated for sentencing on September 29th, 2025, in Miami before United States District Court Judge Kathleen M. Williams.

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A 42-year-old man who is accused of running a $30 million scam targeting elderly Americans has reportedly just been arrested in Canada.

Gareth West was arrested in Quebec on behalf of American authorities and is now facing extradition to the United States to face fraud charges, reports CBC/Radio-Canada.

West is alleged to have posed as a wealthy real estate developer while running a complex “grandparent scam network” that employed more than 20 people and included multiple call centers in the Montreal area.

He faces charges in the US of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

West is alleged to have been the mastermind behind grandparent scammers since at least 2021. The scammers would allegedly phone older Americans, pretend they were their grandchildren who had been arrested or hurt, and say they needed cash right away. Scammers would connect the elderly victims to fake lawyers or bail agents and arrange for cash pickups.

Some 23 of West’s alleged scammer employees were arrested in March.

Police allege that documents they’ve recovered from the suspected scammers show they scammed $30 million during a span of about 67 weeks.

West faces up to 40 years in prison if extradited to the US and convicted of the crimes.

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The man, identified as Edison from Muvattupuzha, was arrested on July 1 after months of surveillance. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) carried out the arrest under a plan called “MELON”.

Officers found more than 1,100 LSD blotters, over 130 grams of ketamine, and cryptocurrency worth around ₹70 lakh (about $82,000).

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Edison is accused of running the network for nearly two years under the name “Ketamelon”.

According to officials, he ordered drugs from overseas suppliers, including a UK-based seller called “Gunga Din“, one of the largest lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) providers globally.

He then mailed packages to buyers in major cities such as Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, and areas in Himachal Pradesh. Records suggested that he sent more than 600 shipments while keeping his identity hidden.

Reports stated that Edison moved his earnings through Monero
XMR


$320.12

The investigation took four months. Officers tracked shipments, monitored online forums, and followed cryptocurrency trails before linking the orders back to Edison’s home.

Officials stated that while Kerala usually sees under 1,000 LSD blotters seized in a whole year, Edison alone was allegedly selling close to 10,000 each month.

Recently, five suspects were arrested in Spain for a crypto fraud scheme that stole nearly $540 million from over 5,000 victims. How did the case unfold? Read the full story.

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Hassan Shittu

Journalist

Hassan Shittu

About Author

Hassan, a Cryptonews.com journalist with 6+ years of experience in Web3 journalism, brings deep knowledge across Crypto, Web3 Gaming, NFTs, and Play-to-Earn sectors. His work has appeared in…

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June 30, 2025

Dwayne Golden of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced to over eight years in federal prison for his role in a $40 million crypto Ponzi scheme, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The sentence was delivered by Judge William F. Kuntz II in a Brooklyn federal court. The 57 years old man had pleaded guilty in September 2024 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.

According to the prosecutor, Golden and his co-conspirators, Gregory Aggesen, Marquis Demacking Egerton (also known as “Mardy Eger”), and William White, created and operated fraudulent investment platforms.

These include EmpowerCoin, ECoinPlus, and Jet-Coin, between April and August 2017. These websites promised investors fixed profits through overseas crypto trading.

No Real Trading Took Place: DOJ Exposes Crypto Scam Network

United States Attorney Nocella noted that the companies only lured investors with promises of guaranteed high returns from overseas cryptocurrency trading. However, prosecutors say none of the companies engaged in any real trading activity.

Instead, the defendants used incoming investor funds to pay earlier investors or diverted the money for personal use, consistent with a Ponzi scheme.

FBI Assistant Director Raia noted that the platforms raised more than $40 million in total. After the schemes collapsed, the defendants tried to hide their crimes by obstructing federal investigations.

Between July 2017 and March 2022, Golden, Aggesen, and White attempted to hinder both a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) inquiry and a federal grand jury investigation. Authorities said they destroyed key evidence and gave false and misleading statements to investigators.

Notably, William White was previously sentenced to 30 months in prison for his role. Meanwhile, Aggesen and Egerton have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

As part of his sentence, Golden was also ordered to forfeit roughly $2.46 million in illegal gains. The court will decide on restitution to victims at a later date.

Victims May Be Eligible for Restitution

In a glimmer of hope, The U.S. Attorney’s Office encouraged victims of EmpowerCoin.com, ECoinPlus.com, or Jet-Coin.com to submit restitution claims through the FBI.

“This office is committed to protecting investors and holding fraudsters accountable,” said U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella. “We will continue to pursue justice for those harmed.”

Earlier this month, five individuals admitted guilt in a separate case involving a $36.9 million cryptocurrency fraud scheme. The group tricked U.S. citizens and funneled the stolen funds to a crypto scam operation based in Cambodia.

With crypto-related scams growing, CertiK co-founder Ronghui Gu reported more than $2.1 billion already lost in 2025. The majority of these losses stem from compromised wallets and poor private key management.

Relatably, The DOJ filed a civil forfeiture complaint to seize $225.3 million in Tether’s USDT, marking the largest crypto seizure tied to a “pig butchering” investment scam.

DOJ officials noted that the action is part of a broader crackdown on transnational scams, with over $9.3 billion in crypto losses reported in 2024, and $5.8 billion linked directly to investment fraud.

A Connecticut man involved with a massive theft of Bitcoin (BTC) from a Washington, D.C. victim reportedly pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges.

ABC News reports that Veer Chetal, who is among the three men charged with siphoning 4,100 BTC worth $243 million in an elaborate scam last August, also agreed to testify against his co-defendants, Malone Lam and Jeandiel Serrano.

Authorities say that the trio engaged in online social engineering attacks targeting cryptocurrency holders. Lam would send fake alerts to victims about unauthorized attempts to access their crypto accounts. Chetal and Serrano would then call and pose as representatives from companies like Google and Yahoo in an effort to access victims’ accounts.

Prosecutors say that Chetal, Lam and Serrano lived large after the heist, spending millions on cars, jewelry, rental mansions and nightclub parties.

But a week after the theft, Chetal’s parents were abducted in a botched ransom scheme. The suspects planned to demand payment from Chetal, believing he held large amounts of cryptocurrency.

But the abductors were arrested quickly after the police responded to eyewitness calls. An off-duty FBI agent also happened to be passing by just as the kidnapping unfolded.

Unsealed court documents also show that Chetal is being accused of playing a role in 50 similar heists that siphoned $3 million from victims between November 2023 and September 2024.

Chetal now faces up to 24 years in prison, a fine ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 and restitution to the victim.

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The leaders of a Brazilian crypto Ponzi scheme have reportedly been handed a combined sentence of over 170 years behind bars.

According to a new report, the three leaders of Braiscompany, which perpetrated the scheme, were sentenced for defrauding investors out of nearly $190 million, or $1.1 billion Brazilian Reals.

The report says the company’s main operator, Joel Ferreira de Souza, was handed a sentence of 128 years behind bars, while the other two perpetrators, Gesana Rayane Silva and Victor Augusto Veronez de Souza, were given sentences of 28 and 15 years, respectively.

According to authorities, the trio promised “exorbitant” returns on the crypto investments of their victims in order to initially get their funds and engaged in money laundering.

Ferreira de Souza was found to be controlling crypto portfolios through third parties, as well as using shell companies to facilitate his crimes. He was convicted of 11 counts of money laundering, while Reyane Silva, the firm’s broker, was found responsible for intermediating financial transactions and transporting funds. De Souza, Joel’s son, was also found guilty of being involved with one of the companies involved in the illegal transactions.

The judge in the case said that proceeds from the scam should go directly to the government. However, Artêmio Picanço – the lawyer representing the victims of Braiscompany – argued on one of his social media accounts that the fund should go directly to the victims.

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