{"id":24195,"date":"2025-05-22T12:35:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T09:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/safemoon-founder-faces-up-to-45-years-for-investor-fraud\/"},"modified":"2025-05-22T12:35:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T09:35:16","slug":"safemoon-founder-faces-up-to-45-years-for-investor-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/safemoon-founder-faces-up-to-45-years-for-investor-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"SafeMoon Founder Faces Up to 45 Years for Investor Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A federal jury has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-edny\/pr\/chief-executive-officer-digital-asset-company-found-guilty-multi-million-dollar-crypto\">found<\/a> Braden John Karony, CEO of the DeFi project SafeMoon, guilty of cryptocurrency fraud.<\/p>\n<p>According to prosecutors, the accused and his accomplices misappropriated funds from the liquidity pool, despite public assurances of its safety and lock-up.<\/p>\n<p>Karony was convicted on three counts:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>conspiracy to commit securities fraud;<\/li>\n<li>wire fraud;<\/li>\n<li>money laundering.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The maximum penalty for these charges is 45 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, SafeMoon reached a capitalization of $8 billion. The project charged a 10% fee on each transaction, promising to direct half into a \u201clocked\u201d liquidity pool.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators found that instead, Karony transferred \u201cmillions\u201d to his accounts, concealing it through a \u201cmaze of wallets and anonymous transactions.\u201d His personal gain is estimated to have exceeded $9 million.<\/p>\n<p>With the proceeds, Karony purchased luxury real estate and cars, including an Audi R8 and a Tesla.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u201cSafeMoon was a pie in the sky for investors, deliberately misled by Karony\u2014a man seeking to get rich quick by stealing and siphoning millions of dollars,\u201d said attorney Joseph Nocella.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The project\u2019s CEO continues to assert his innocence on social media.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I am innocent and did not commit fraud. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/nnYBdlEmgt\">pic.twitter.com\/nnYBdlEmgt<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 John Karony (@CptHodl) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CptHodl\/status\/1922463003888304420?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 14, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In 2023, the Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also charged SafeMoon creator Kyle Nagy. He remains at large.<\/p>\n<p>In February 2025, the project\u2019s CTO, Thomas Smith, <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/safemoon-cto-admits-guilt-in-200-million-crypto-fraud\">pleaded guilty<\/a> to two charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal jury has found Braden John Karony, CEO of the DeFi project SafeMoon, guilty of cryptocurrency fraud. According to prosecutors, the accused and his accomplices misappropriated funds from the liquidity pool, despite public assurances of its safety and lock-up. Karony was convicted on three counts: conspiracy to commit securities fraud; wire fraud; money laundering. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1162,1246,26],"class_list":["post-24195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-court-cases","tag-scammers","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"50","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}