According to the Prosecutor's Office of the Eastern District of Washington, in the period from March 4, 2021 to September 10, 2022, Michael Joseph McElhiney falsely stated to investors that he successfully manages the MAC Blockchain Solutions crypto fund, investing in cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based projects, as well as doing ETH staking.
McaLeany guaranteed the investors a profit and promised them that they would be able to return the invested money at any time. McaLeany sent fake data to investors through the Coin platform.FYI, which was supposed to track their investments. In fact, Mcalini did not invest the collected funds anywhere, but spent them on casinos and personal needs. The figures presented on Coin.FYI, did not correspond to reality and were fabricated, the prosecutor's office said.
Usually, the scammer contacted his victims personally. He invited Uber taxi drivers into his fraudulent scheme, whom he met during trips. The man did not miss the opportunity to invite women to the project, whom he met through dating sites. McaLeany also attracted investors online by playing the game "Call of Duty" under the pseudonym Bing Bong.
Thus, Mcalini fraudulently collected more than $350,000 from investors, as well as obtained rare works of art and precious metals. A sentencing hearing for McaLeany is scheduled for September 25, 2024 in Spokane, Washington.
Recall that recently the New York prosecutor's office tracked down three creators of the fraudulent NFT project Evolved Apes, who managed to raise $ 3 million. This month, the New York prosecutor's office accused the crypto companies NovaTech Ltd and AWS Mining Pty Ltd of fraud with digital assets.