A Texas man has been sentenced to 23 years in prison following his conviction for orchestrating a cryptocurrency scam that defrauded nearly 1,000 investors of $20 million. Robert Dunlap, who acted as a trustee for the fraudulent project involving the fictional Meta-1 Coin, was ordered by US District Judge LaShonda Hunt to pay restitution to the victims of the scheme.
In November, a federal jury found Dunlap guilty on two counts of mail fraud. The charges stemmed from allegations that he engaged in misleading practices from 2018 to 2023, falsely claiming that the token was backed by assets including a $1 billion art collection and $44 billion in gold. His co-conspirators and he inflated the market price and trading volume of Meta-1 Coin through automated trading bots.
The SEC intervened in March 2020, freezing assets and halting the marketing of Meta-1 Coin by Dunlap and his accomplices, who included Nicole Bowdler and former Washington state Senator David Schmidt. Despite promises of exorbitant returns, the coins were never distributed, and the funds raised were misappropriated for personal luxuries, including a Ferrari.