FACES DECADES IN PRISON FOR BEING A MANIPULATOR
AE (28), who lives in Puerto Rico, was convicted in mid-April of “commodities fraud, commodities market manipulation, and wire fraud in connection with the manipulation on the Mango Markets decentralized cryptocurrency exchange.”
Apparently, AE defrauded investors out of some $110 million in a cryptocurrency scheme by “manipulating the price of certain perpetual futures contracts.”
In a written statement, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, noted, “[AE] executed a manipulative trading scheme on a cryptocurrency exchange, defrauding the exchange and its investors out of $110 million …. Manipulative trading puts our financial markets and investors at risk. This prosecution—the first involving the manipulation of cryptocurrency through open-market trades—demonstrates the Criminal Division’s commitment to protecting U.S. financial markets and holding wrongdoers accountable, no matter what mechanism they use to commit manipulation and fraud.”
With sentencing now scheduled for July 29, 2024, AE faces up to a decade in prison on the “commodities fraud count and the commodities manipulation count,” and up to 20 years in prison on the “wire fraud count.”
Is there no manipulating that?
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