Good day everybody,
Welcome to CryptoGod-1's blog on all things crypto. In this post I will be looking at the recent news of Robert Dunlap being arrested on federal mail fraud charges in connection with the Meta-1 Coin scam.
Meta-1 Coin Scam
Robert Dunlop, a resident of Texas, was arrested as per a press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday the 19th of March 2024. This is in relation to the Meta-1 Coin scam which resulted in multiple investors being drained over over a combined $10 million. According to the complaint by the DOJ, Dunlap developed a digital asset entitled Meta-1 Coin in 2018 which he claimed was backed by over $44 billion in gold and art. Within this claimed collection was pieces by “Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, along with other acclaimed artists.
The reality was much different, with no artwork purchased and the board members for the Meta-1 Coin Trust being informed by Dunlap that he claimed to be “in possession of billions of dollars of gold” despite lacking “any proof that he or Meta1 Coin Trust purchased, owned, or possessed any gold assets of any kind.”
It has been alleged by authorities that the Meta-1 Coin creator fraudulently generated “numerous legal, insurance, and other documents in an effort to conceal the fact that he did not possess the gold or art.” This included a surety bond he claimed was backed by the U.S. Treasury. As part of the Meta-1 Coin whitepaper it was noted:
“The loss of any art piece due to any reason will not affect the value of coin for long because the new art of equal amount can be acquired by filing a claim on the Surety Bond and then purchasing an art piece of the same amount.”
Dunlop also created an exchange for the cryptocurrency utilizing “decentralised exchange bots” in order to “create the false appearance of an active market on the exchange website.” The use of bots meant they would “place bids/asks and the scripts, using multiple accounts, to periodically conduct actual trades with each other, when, in fact, no real user was on either side of those trades.” The complaint also noted how victims of the scheme were given instructions on how to send checks via mail to Chicago in order to secure their investment.
Chainalysis noted that scamming is most successful when markets are up, exuberance is high, and people feel like they are missing out on an opportunity to get rich quickly.” There are multiple statistics on crypto scams but the information in conflicting, with the FBI noting that digital asset fraud schemes have been increasing year over year through 2022, while Chainalysis notes a major decrease in 2024. Dunlap will facing four counts of mail fraud for the scam involving the digital asset Meta-1 Coin, while each charge will carry a maximum sentence of two decades in federal prison.
Have a great day.
Peace. CryptoGod-1.
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