Former rugby player Shane Donovan Moore was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in a US federal prison for defrauding more than 40 investors out of $900,000 in a crypto mining Ponzi scheme.
According to a Thursday Department of Justice announcement, Moore operated Quantum Donovan LLC from January 2021 to October 2022. Through the company, he reportedly defrauded over 40 investors out of more than $900,000.
While promoting the scheme, Moore claimed that the funds raised would be spent on cryptocurrency mining hardware. He promised investors daily returns of 1%.
“Mr. Moore used the newness of cryptocurrency to commit an age-old fraud — a Ponzi scheme,” said Acting US Attorney Teal Luthy Miller.
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The end of a long battle
US Justice Department officials charged Moore with fraud as far back as March 2024. Authorities said he leveraged connections “from his rugby activities” to find investors.
Instead of acquiring mining hardware, Moore reportedly used investor money to fund a lavish lifestyle. He purchased luxury apartments, designer luggage, and electronics, using new investor funds to repay earlier ones, typical in Ponzi schemes.
US District Judge Tana Lin in Seattle said that he “caused emotional and psychological damage to the victims” in addition to financial losses.
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The latest crypto Ponzi scheme of many
Moore’s case is far from the only one in which crypto was leveraged to lure victims into a scam or a Ponzi scheme. In mid-February, a US regulator charged a Las Vegas man with allegedly defrauding over 400 investors out of $24 million through a misleading AI-driven crypto mining investment that was a disguised Ponzi scheme.
In late January, Antonia Perez Hernandez, a promoter of the forcount crypto Ponzi scheme who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, was sentenced to more than two years in prison.
In late 2024, an 86-year-old former California attorney was sentenced to five years’ probation and ordered to pay almost $14 million after admitting to carrying out a multimillion-dollar crypto Ponzi scheme.
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