The director of Volantis Escrow Platform LLC and Volantis Market Marking LLC have pleaded guilty to several million dollars in cryptocurrency fraud, according to the prosecutor's office of the Southern District of New York.
Last July, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted John Thompson for electronic fraud and commodities fraud. According to the charges, he received money from customers to buy Bitcoins, but failed to meet his obligations. 14 months later Thompson pleaded guilty to the exchange fraud.
The case mentions an unnamed company that gave Thompson $3.25 million to buy bitcoins. The firm under his control was supposed to be an escrow agent.
"Although Thompson promised not to give the money to the company until he received the bitcoins, in reality he sent the money to a third party even before he received the bitcoins, after which the money was not returned," it says.
The prosecutor's office noted that Thompson promised to carry out the transaction through an "atomic swap process" and lied to the client for several days about the fate of his money.
According to Thompson himself, the services offered by his company made it possible to "minimise the risk of settlement fraud". The sentence will be announced on 7 January 2021. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.
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