Ferrari BTC Purchase Gone Wrong and Morocco Scam Story (Report)
Clausi has already been in jail for a long time.
The Casablanca Court of Appeals decided that Thomas Clausi, a 21-year-old Frenchman, will spend 18 months in jail for running a crypto scheme. The suspect must pay back the people who lost money because of his scam and pay a fine of 3.7 million euros to customs officials.
Recently, crypto scammers have come up with a lot of new ways to steal money from buyers. Some of them have been caught and sent to jail, which is a good thing.
For example, Gilbert Armenta, the ex-boyfriend of Ruja Ignatove (also known as the “Cryptoqueen”), will spend five years in prison for his part in the notorious OneCoin scam. Cooper Morgenthau, who used to be the CFO of African Gold, stole $5 million from different SPACs to trade meme stocks. He was given a three-year prison term.
Frenchman’s Jail Time Has a Catch
Morocco World News said that the judges in Casablanca upheld the 18-month sentence for the young man. A French woman living in Morocco sold the defendant a Ferrari for $440,000 worth of bitcoin a few years ago. This is what started the trial against the defendant. Local law says that it is against the law to pay with digital assets.
Someone else said that Clausi gave them a fake check in return for three expensive watches. The court in Casablanca told the man to give the things back to the owner for $4,000. It also said that the suspect must pay customs officials a fine of $3.7 million.
Clausi’s lawyer, Mohamed Aghanaj, said that his client has been in jail since December 2021, so he has almost finished his sentence:
“He has one month and a few days left in prison.”
Even though Moroccan lawmakers are against cryptocurrencies, they are becoming more and more famous in the area. The country’s central bank, Al-Maghrib, has said in the past that it wants to create a regulatory system for the asset class that will keep users as safe as possible.
Earlier Sentences
Gilbert Armenta, who used to date Ruja Ignatova, was given five years in federal jail by the Southern District of New York (SDNY) Courthouse for laundering $300 million that he stole from OneCoin investors. The prosecutors said that Armenta bought a jet plane with some of the money and gambled with the rest.
Cooper Morgenthau, the former boss of African Gold, will also see the prison cell from the inside, as CryptoPotato recently revealed. He is said to have taken more than $5 million out of three SPACs and used the money to trade “meme stocks” and cryptocurrencies using options and stocks.
Do Kwon, the co-founder of Terraform Labs, and Sam Bankman-Fried, the previous CEO of FTX, are both well-known crypto scammers who may end up in prison.
Many failed investors and agencies say that both men set up multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency scams and should go to jail for it. In March, the government of Montenegro caught Kwon after he had been on the run for several months. He could be sent to a trial in the USA or South Korea soon. The trial will decide if he is guilty and what sentence he might get.
After a short time in jail in the Bahamas, Bankman-Fried now lives with his parents in California. At the beginning of October, his trial will decide if he had anything to do with the huge FTX meltdown. If he is found guilty, he could spend the rest of his life in jail.
