Mining Capital Coin CEO accused of $62M investment fraud scheme

cointelegraph.com:

The CEO and co-founder of crypto mining and investment platform Mining Capital Coin (MCC) Luiz Capuci Jr. has been indicted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for “allegedly orchestrating a $62 million global investment fraud scheme.”

The DOJ is charging Capuci with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit international money laundering in relation to several allegedly fraudulent schemes that were run via MCC. If found guilty, he faces a maximum prison sentence of 45 years.

According to the DOJ’s indictment, Capuci (alongside unnamed co-conspirators) is accused of misleading investors over the profit-bearing potential of MCC mining packages and a native token dubbed Capital Coin that was backed by the “biggest cryptocurrency mining operation in the world.”

As part of the mining packages, Capuci is said to have touted “substantial profits and guaranteed returns by using investors’ money to mine new cryptocurrency” but allegedly failed to deliver on the bargain:

Capuci is also accused of marketing dubious MCC trading bots “with new technology never seen before” that could conduct “thousands of trades per second “ and generate daily returns for investors.

“As he did with the Mining Packages, however, Capuci allegedly operated an investment fraud scheme with the Trading Bots and was not, as he promised, using MCC Trading Bots to generate income for investors, but instead was diverting the funds to himself and co-conspirators,” the DOJ indictment reads.

Additionally, the MCC CEO and co-founder allegedly recruited MCC promoters and affiliates as part of a multi-level marketing scheme. In return for luring investors into the MCC ecosystem, Capuci is said to have promised