USFIA founder Steve Chen has died in jail.
Following a responsible plea entered again in 2020, Chen was sentenced to to 10 years in jail in 2021.
The Bureau of Jail’s inmate search operate reveals Chen, 65, died on November nineteenth. Chen’s reason behind demise is unknown.
Chen, who additionally glided by Li Chen and “Boss”, launched USFIA in 2013. USFIA operated from California and primarily focused the Asian-American neighborhood.
BehindMLM reviewed USFIA in 2015, accurately figuring out it as a “GemCoin” Ponzi factors scheme.
A couple of months after the evaluate was printed, the SEC shut down USFIA.
Preliminary response from USFIA buyers noticed them name for the assassination of two cooperating victims.
The SEC initially pegged USFIA investor damages at $32 million. A then ongoing investigation by a court docket appointed Receiver noticed that quantity blow out to $180 million.
In 2017 Chen and USFIA, underneath Receivership management, settled the SEC’s civil fraud prices for $200 million.
When precisely the DOJ started investigating USFIA and Chen is unclear. In February 2020 nonetheless, it was revealed Chen had pled responsible to 1 depend of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one depend of tax evasion.
Chen’s jail sentenced was handed down on January eleventh, 2021.
Sufferer losses apart, Chen’s model of MLM Ponzi is fondly remembered for the sheriff and regulation enforcement cosplay at USFIA occasions.
At one USFIA occasion held in September 2015, Chen’s bouncers dressed up as law enforcement officials with matching badged uniforms:
Chen, who was armed, offered himself because the Sheriff of GemCoin:
USFIA may even go down as one of many first main MLM crypto Ponzi busts within the US.
Whereas at present what’s left of a lot of the crypto trade typically is written off as fraud, again in 2015 it was nonetheless the wild west. There have been loads of suckers for enterprising crypto bros to fleece.
OneCoin was in its relative infancy and Dubai was but to determine itself because the monetary crime den it’s at present.
Sadly we don’t actually get MLM Ponzi characters like Chen anymore.
Main the MLM crypto Ponzi area at present are getting old nobodies who’ve in any other case achieved nothing significant in life. They experience the dregs of crypto “tech” while principally hiding out in Dubai.
As MLM crypto Ponzi enterprise fashions have change into indistinguishably braindead, so too have the scammers behind them.
2013 to 2015 was definitely a distinct time. Right here’s to you Mr. Chen.
