Operator behind sham crypto firms EmpowerCoin, ECoinPlus, and Jet-Coin sentenced to 8 years in prison

Dwayne Golden, a 57-year-old man from Pennsylvania, was sentenced to 97 months, or about eight years, in prison for his role in operating crypto schemes defrauding $40 million from investors, according to a release from the United States Department of Justice.

Golden, as well as co-conspirators Gregory Aggesen and Marquis Demacking Egerton, ran the crypto firms EmpowerCoin, ECoinPlus, and Jet-Coin between April 2017 and August 2017. These firms promised investors fixed returns on digital asset investments through purported overseas operations. The defendants raised over $40 million, which they used to repay existing investors or themselves in what the Department of Justice describes as a "Ponzi scheme."

"Dwayne Golden and his co-conspirators took advantage of investor interest in exciting new technologies to perpetrate a fraud scheme that is as old as time, and to make millions of dollars for themselves in the process," said U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella in a statement. "Golden and his co-defendants offered no legitimate services and none of the companies engaged in any actual trading in cryptocurrency as they claimed."

Once the firms collapsed, Golden, Aggesen, and another co-conspirator William White conspired to obstruct federal investigations by destroying evidence, in addition to providing false or misleading information to the Federal Trade Commission and a federal grand jury subpoena between July 2017 to March 2022, the release continues.

Golden must also forfeit about $2.46 million in illicitly procured assets along with serving 97 months in prison. All four defendants pleaded guilty, with White receiving a 30-month (2.5-year) prison sentence and Aggesen and Egerton awaiting sentencing as of June 27.

Golden, along with Aggesen and Egerton, were first charged with fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes in March 2022 for their role in operating EmpowerCoin, ECoinPlus, and Jet-Coin.

While cryptocurrency-based Ponzi schemes still cost investors millions, bad actors are increasingly opting for more targeted "pig butchering" and address poisoning financial crimes instead, The Block previously reported.