Joseph Kim, 24, of Phoenix, Arizona, was sentenced to 15 months in prison for cryptocurrency fraud, according to the Illinois State Attorney's Office. In particular, he stole Bitcoin and Litecoin coins worth about $600,000 from a former employer and $545,000 from his own acquaintances.
Kim worked as an assistant trader at Consolidated Trading, located in Chicago.
The company recently opened a cryptocurrency trading platform. While working on this site, Kim covered his own trading losses by stealing Bitcoin and Litecoin belonging to the company. The theft was discovered and Kim was fired. Then he began to beg money from friends, saying that he left of his own free will. According to the indictment, some of those people gave him their retirement savings.
Kim pleaded guilty to one charge during the trial as four investors testified against him, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission also filed charges.
Sunil Harjani and Sheri Mecklenburg, assistant U.S. attorneys, said that “despite the complexity of cryptocurrency trading, the criminal justice system will hold traders and investment investors accountable consultants for fraud and theft."
In June 2018, a 50-year-old Los Angeles resident named Teresa Tetley was sentenced to 30 months in prison for carrying out Bitcoin transactions related to the purchase drugs.
In September, a Texas resident was sentenced to 21 months in prison for participating in a Ponzi scheme through four fraudulent mining companies. A total of $9 million was stolen from investors. In addition to the prison sentence, the scammer must pay $9.1 million to the victims.
However, the most severe sentence for cryptocurrency crimes is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for 24-year-old Ross William Ulbricht without the possibility of parole for his work at Silk Road.
According to financemagnates.com
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