{"id":45479,"date":"2021-07-04T15:44:10","date_gmt":"2021-07-04T12:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=45479"},"modified":"2025-09-01T11:21:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T08:21:54","slug":"dropil-founders-agree-to-plead-guilty-to-1-9-million-ico-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/dropil-founders-agree-to-plead-guilty-to-1-9-million-ico-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Dropil founders agree to plead guilty to $1.9 million ICO fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-cdca\/pr\/two-oc-men-agree-plead-guilty-securities-fraud-charge-swindling-investors-through-18\">said<\/a> that the founders of the cryptocurrency project Dropil (DROP), Jeremy Makalpin and Zachary Matar, agreed to plead guilty to securities fraud in connection with an ICO worth nearly $1.9 million.<\/p>\n<p>According to the indictment, they sold DROP tokens to thousands of investors, with funds allegedly intended to finance the Dex trading bot&#8217;s operations.<\/p>\n<p>According to the DOJ, neither Makalpin nor Matar are registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Prosecutors added that the defendants made &#8216;a series of false statements to investors in the white paper&#8217; on the Dropil website and in its Twitter profile to &#8216;promote the success of the cryptocurrency&#8217;.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8216;The defendants fabricated profitability reports for Dex and transferred DROP to Dex users, creating a false impression of its functionality and profitability,&#8217; according to the department&#8217;s statement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>According to the DOJ, Makalpin and Matar also made false statements about the amount raised, claiming $54 million from 34,000 investors.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8216;Actually, the defendants received about $1,896,657 from 2,472 investors through the sale of 629 million DROP. But Makalpin and Matar did not spend at least $1.6 million of the raised funds, using them to pay themselves and their partners,&#8217; the department added.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Earlier they agreed with the SEC to settle the civil action filed in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Back in March 2021, Sohrab Sharma, co-founder of the Centra Tech ICO project promoted by professional boxer Floyd Mayweather, <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/co-founder-of-floyd-mayweather-promoted-ico-project-sentenced-to-eight-years-in-prison\">received eight years in prison<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In February the SEC <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/investors-lose-11-4-million-in-bitcoiin2gen-token-sale-tied-to-steven-seagal\">accused<\/a> three partners of the cryptocurrency startup Bitcoiin2Gen of fraud totaling $11.4 million in an ICO in which Hollywood actor Steven Seagal participated.<\/p>\n<p>Read ForkLog&#8217;s bitcoin news on our <a href=\"\/\/telegram.me\/forklog\" target=\"\u201c_blank\u201d\" rel=\"\u201cnofollow\u201d noopener\">Telegram<\/a> \u2014 news, prices and analytics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Department of Justice said that two men from California agreed to plead guilty to securities fraud in connection with an ICO worth about $1.9 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1154,319,128,26],"class_list":["post-45479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crimes","tag-ico","tag-sec","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"11","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45479","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=45479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45481,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45479\/revisions\/45481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}