Prosecutors have charged Jeremy Jordan-Jones, the self-styled founding father of a now-defunct crypto startup known as Amalgam, with fraud, alleging that he swindled buyers in his “sham blockchain” of greater than $1 million, utilizing the cash to fund a lavish way of life.
Based on prosecutors, Jordan-Jones painted Amalgam as a tech firm that created blockchain-based point-of-sale fee techniques, which he claimed had multi-million-dollar partnerships with sports activities groups together with the Golden State Warriors and an expert soccer staff in England’s Premier League, in addition to a giant restaurant conglomerate with greater than 500 eating places. None of those partnerships existed, prosecutors stated. Jordan-Jones additionally allegedly solicited investments from would-be buyers by telling them the cash could be used to facilitate the itemizing of Amalgam’s non-existent crypto token on a crypto change.
Whereas allegedly spinning tales for buyers — together with a enterprise capital agency, recognized in a 2022 Forbes article as Brown Enterprise Group — prosecutors say Jordan-Jones was blowing their cash on an expensive way of life for himself, together with “accommodations and eating places in Miami,” automotive funds, and designer clothes.
“Jordan-Jones, capitalizing on the publicity round blockchain expertise, perpetrated a brazen scheme to defraud buyers,” stated U.S. Legal professional Jay Clayton in a Tuesday press announcement. “He touted his firm as a groundbreaking blockchain startup, backed by high-profile partnerships. In actuality, Jordan-Jones’s firm was a sham, and buyers’ funds had been siphoned off to bankroll his lavish way of life. This ought to be an instance to would-be monetary fraudsters that the ladies and men of the Southern District and the FBI are watching and to the investing public that fraudsters usually use the promise of latest expertise to cloak their schemes.”
Moreover, prosecutors have accused Jordan-Jones of offering falsified paperwork to a monetary establishment, which he used to fraudulently get hold of a company bank card, working up a $350,000 stability earlier than the financial institution closed his account.
Jordan-Jones has been charged with one rely every of wire fraud, securities fraud, making false statements to a monetary establishment and aggravated identification theft — fees which carry a mixed most sentence of 82 years in jail. The aggravated identification theft cost carries a compulsory minimal sentence of two years.