Ventura County man accused in $22M cryptocurrency fraud case

A Ventura County man is one of two defendants accused by federal prosecutors of defrauding investors of more than $22 million in a cryptocurrency scheme.

A six-count indictment unsealed in Los Angeles Friday charged Gavin Mayo, 23, of Thousand Oaks, and 23-year-old Gabriel Hay of Beverly Hills with two counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of stalking, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release.

The two allegedly carried out what prosecutors call “rug pulls” involving digital assets. The fraud can include soliciting investor funds for a project using nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, then suddenly abandoning the project while keeping investor funds, according to the release.

Federal authorities claim that over a three year period starting in May 2021, Mayo and Hay sponsored several projects involving NFTs and other digital assets. While promoting the projects, they allegedly made false or misleading statements or caused others to make such statements, prosecutors say, and provided false “roadmaps” detailing plans for the assets that they never intended to fulfill.

What is a rug pull?

The indictment includes examples of such purported campaigns, including promotion for the Vault of Gems NFT project. In September 2021, the indictment alleges, Hay registered the Vault of Gems website, which falsely claimed it would be the “first NFT project to be pegged to a hard asset.” The website said the goal was to create a private marketplace where virtual assets could be exchanged in real time for hard assets by “working firsthand in partnerships with jewelers around the globe,” the document says.

Instead, after collecting millions from investors, Hay and Mayo abandoned the project, prosecutors allege.

The defendants used similar tactics with other digital asset projects that went by names such as Faceless, Sinful Souls, Clout Coin, Dirty Dogs, Uncovered, MoonPortal, Squiggles and Roost Coin, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Mayo and Hay also allegedly hid their involvement in such projects by falsely identifying others as project owners or causing other people to be falsely identified as owners, prosecutors claim.

When a project manager on the Faceless NFT project exposed the defendants as being behind it, Hay and Mayo allegedly carried out a harassment campaign against the victim and his parents meant to intimidate them, according to the release.

The indictment lists several nicknames for Hay: “Mr. Handz,” “Diamondhandz,” “Centurion” and “Vaultkeeper.”

Mayo is also known as “Gavinm,” the document said. It lists Mayo as a Los Angeles County resident, but a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said he is from Thousand Oaks. Mayo also lived in Pennsylvania and Florida during the period covered in the indictment, prosecutors say.

Principal Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the criminal division at the U.S. Department of Justice, said in a statement fraudsters take advantage of new technologies and financial products.

“Gabriel Hay and Gavin Mayo allegedly defrauded investors in digital asset projects of tens of millions of dollars and threatened an individual who attempted to expose their roles in these fraudulent schemes,” Argentieri said.

“Whenever a new investment trend occurs, scammers are sure to follow,” said U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada in a statement. “My office and our law enforcement partners will continue our efforts to protect consumers and punish wrongdoers involved in crypto fraud.”

Estrada leads the agency’s Central District of California, which includes Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

Each of the defendants has a $200,000 bond and a trial has been set for February, a spokesman for Estrada’s office said following arraignment in district court in downtown Los Angeles Friday afternoon.

If convicted, they each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each of the conspiracy and wire fraud counts and a maximum penalty of five years on the stalking count, according to prosecutors.

The Baltimore field office of Homeland Security Investigations, a federal law enforcement agency within the Department of Homeland Security, is investigating the case. Attorneys from the Justice Department’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team are helping prosecute, authorities said.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Ventura County man accused in $22M cryptocurrency fraud case

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