Austin Michael Taylor, the proprietor of CLU LLC, an Aventura-based corporation, and the creator of the cryptocurrency project CluCoin, entered a guilty plea to wire fraud in a Miami federal court on Wednesday, according to prosecutors.
The accusations are related to a scam in which Taylor, 40, allegedly moved $1,140,000 in investor monies for CluCoin to his own account. According to court documents, Taylor created interest in a digital currency he called “CLU” by leveraging his sizable social media following.
Taylor advertised CLU’s initial coin offering (ICO) during a fundraising event where investors traded existing cryptocurrencies or fiat money for a new digital token, according to a press statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Authorities claim that Taylor created a white paper highlighting the ICO’s altruistic goals in order to draw investors while she was there.
ICO for CluCoin was successfully launched on May 19, 2021. Investigators claim that Taylor later moved CluCoin’s efforts toward new projects, such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a video game, and a metaverse platform.
Taylor arranged and funded “NFTCon: Into the Metaverse,” which took place in Miami on April 4 and 5, 2022, in an effort to raise awareness of these initiatives.
Detectives added that Taylor acquired the capacity to withdraw money from a bitcoin address connected to investor funds shortly after the incident, in May 2022.
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Authorities claim that between May and December 2022, he moved over $1.14 million in investor funds to his own account at a virtual currency exchange, only to lose the money when playing at online casinos. According to court documents, Taylor will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra on October 31 at 10 a.m.
According to the DOJ press release, Taylor could get a sentence of up to 20 years in prison for the wire fraud conviction. Becerra will ultimately decide on the appropriate sentence after taking the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other relevant legal considerations into account.
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