Randall Crater, the person responsible for operating the fraudulent scheme called “My Big Coin,” was sentenced to one hundred months in prison and ordered to pay the losers a total of more than seven and a half million dollars in damages as a result of his scheme .
According to a statement released Jan. 31 by the US Department of Justice, US District Court Judge Denise Casper in the state of Massachusetts was the one who handed down the sentence against Crater.
This verdict came against Crater after a federal jury found him guilty on July 21 on four counts of wire fraud, three counts of unauthorized money transactions and one count of operating an unregistered money transfer business. All of these charges related to the same system. After adding up all of these fees, it became clear that Crater was operating an unlicensed money transfer business.
Crater launched My Big Coin in 2013, and while it was never intended as a cryptocurrency payment mechanism, the company advertised itself as such. This resulted in searches for potential victims between 2014 and 2017, and the scam continued through 2017.
According to Crater, the digital currencies available for purchase on My Big Coin are fully functional tokens backed by gold. In addition, the site works with Mastercard to facilitate transactions.
In addition, Crater gave its users access to a marketplace called “My Big Coin Exchange,” which was promoted as a place where users could exchange their cryptocurrencies for fiat currencies like the US dollar and other currencies.
A significant percentage of the $7.6 million in funding that Crater and his marketing team successfully raised was used to purchase a home, many cars, and more than $1 million worth of antiques, artwork and jewelry.
