Ohio Man Gets 9 Years for $10M Bitcoin Trading Ponzi Scheme

An Ohio funding supervisor has been sentenced to nine years in prison for orchestrating a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme that defrauded buyers of $10 million.

Together with the nine-year sentence, Rathnakishore Giri, 31, of New Albany, acquired three years of supervised launch after pleading responsible to 1 rely of wire fraud in October 2024.

Giri’s scheme concerned false guarantees of assured returns by Bitcoin derivatives buying and selling. As a substitute of investing funds, the funding supervisor used cash from new victims to pay earlier members in a “hallmark of a Ponzi scheme.”

According to prosecutors, Giri “created the looks of success” by presenting himself as a profitable, rich investor with a storage of luxurious vehicles together with two Lamborghinis, a Tesla and an Audi R8, a set of high-end watches. He additionally indulged in flights on non-public jets and luxurious trip leases.

Per the Ohio Workplace of Public Affairs, Giri continued the fraud after his request for forgiveness. Whereas on pretrial launch awaiting sentencing, he solicited funds from new cryptocurrency buyers, inflicting “extra hurt to new victims” whilst federal prosecutors ready for his sentencing listening to.

The sentencing comes as cryptocurrency fraud reaches new heights. In response to the FBI, People misplaced more than $11 billion to crypto-related crimes in 2025, a 22% enhance from the earlier 12 months.

Authorities are responding by ramping up enforcement of crypto Ponzi schemes. Final 12 months, two Estonian nationals have been sentenced to 16 months in jail for his or her half within the $577 million HashFlare Ponzi scheme. And in February, the previous CEO of crypto funding agency Goliath Ventures was arrested on federal fees of wire fraud and cash laundering, after allegedly working a Ponzi scheme that drew in $328 million. That case has additionally drawn in finance big JPMorgan Chase, which was sued a month later over failing to detect and cease the alleged scheme.