A federal court in California on October 5 handed down a prison sentence of 6 years and 6 months to a self-proclaimed "Godfather" crypto businessman, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California announced the same day. The sentence covered three charges: defrauding Meta, tax evasion, and conspiring with a sheriff's deputy to violate rights; the defendant had pleaded guilty in January 2025. The amount defrauded from Meta exceeded 37 million dollars, roughly 5.85 billion yen, and the ruling also ordered restitution of 23,402,766 dollars, about 3.7 billion yen. The fraud used accounts on Meta's advertising management service Business Manager, with the defendant illegally gaining access to accounts and to credit lines usable for paying advertising costs, then selling the rights to use them to advertising companies. The fraudulently used advertising costs were billed to legitimate customers, and Meta bore the loss after refunding them once the scheme was discovered. The defendant also failed to file corporate tax returns on the income obtained and concealed his ownership of the company, moving income to a cryptocurrency custodian, among other actions. To threaten an adversary, he used a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputy who was off duty, and the deputy used investigative databases and fraudulently obtained warrants to look up the person's personal information and whereabouts. In 2022, targeting a person believed to possess a laptop with access to a large amount of cryptocurrency, the deputy obtained a warrant on false grounds and pinpointed the location from cellphone location data; the defendant sent three armed men to the person's home to seize the laptop, but the victim opened fire and the three fled. The defendant was also sentenced in September to 15 years in prison for involvement in a separate attempted Bitcoin robbery and kidnapping case, and the 6-year-6-month sentence will be served concurrently with that 15-year term.
Meta Platforms Inc.Crypto businessman sentenced for defrauding Meta of over $37 million via its Business Manager ad accounts, a loss Meta bore after refunding legitimate customers.
