The third co-founder of the alleged Centra Tech cryptocurrency scam project, backed by celebrities such as Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled, is reportedly planning to plead guilty to deceiving investors into engaging more than 25 million dollars in its initial parts supply (ICO).

Third Centra Tech Inc Co-Founder Pleads Guilty

According to the Bloomberg report, Sohrab "Sam" Sharma, one of the co-founders of Centra Tech, agreed to change his plea before the date of his trial in November 2020. His lawyers have informed US District Judge Lorna Schofield in a court case on Monday in New York.

Sharma was the only co-founder of the allegedly fraudulent cryptocurrency project who had not pleaded guilty or convicted. Robert Farkas pleaded guilty in June this year, while Raymond Trapani was arrested and charged with securities and wire fraud in April 2018.

The trio worked for a luxury car rental company in Florida nicknamed Miami Exotics, before deciding to enter the cryptocurrency space. They have founded Centra Tech and have revealed a supposed debit card enable purchases with digital currency in any business accepting MasterCard or Visa.

When advertising their product, the trio made several bold statements. These included having a Harvard-trained CEO with more than 20 years of experience in the field, partnerships with MasterCard and Visa, and licenses to operate in 38 states. 

While the US GM was investigating and putting a stop to the project, it turned out that none of the above statements were really true. As a result, the men were charged with misleading investors by putting money into a falsely advertised ICO that had raised more than $ 25 million.

After Farkas pleaded guilty to the two counts, the DOJ ordered a sentence of up to 87 months and a fine of $ 250,000, and the date of conviction is scheduled for October. As of this writing, Sharma's conviction has not been released.

Celebrity participation

One of the few partially accurate claims by Centra Tech was that it had the approval of celebrities such as boxer Floyd Mayweather and musician DJ Khaled. However, while the duo did promote the fraudulent project, they did not reveal that they had accepted money for it.

Consequently, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged the two men for this reason. Mayweather agreed to pay $ 300,000 in restitution, a penalty of $ 300,000 and $ 14,775 in pre-judgment interest. Khaled, for his part, paid $ 50,000 in restitution, a fine of $ 100,000 and $ 2,725 in pre-trial interest.