Five people have been sentenced to prison for a $21.6 million cryptocurrency scam that allegedly used stolen funds to buy shark tanks, private jet rides, sex workers and luxury cars.
Criminals took $21.6 million (€20 million) from approximately 40,000 investors through various investment schemes involving EXW wallets and EXW crypto tokens, Austrian news outlet Heute reported on October 23.
Two of the defendants were sentenced to five years in prison, two to 30 months in prison, and one to 18 months in prison. The remaining five were acquitted, but some continued to hide from authorities.
The fraud trial in the Klagenfurt district court was the largest in Austrian history, Heute noted.
Judge Claudia Bandion-Ortner handed down the sentence on October 23 after a two-month trial and 300 hours of negotiations.
Heute said the con artists lived as if they were in a “Hollywood movie”, partying at Dubai’s “most luxurious” clubs and traveling between cities in private jets.
They even bought a shark tank at the villa, Bali-based news and review site BehindMLM reported.
A listed home in Sydney shows what a luxury shark tank inside a home looks like. source: realestate.com.au
In a July 12 article, BehindMLM revealed that more than $100,000 was spent on sex workers.
“There was no shortage of money,” Heute said.
The operation was based in Dubai, but some of the stolen cash was transported in plastic bags to Austria (where many of the fraudsters are from), Heute said.
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Austrian prosecutors indicted eight people involved in the EXW scam in September 2023, with more people charged in subsequent months.
There is no extradition agreement between Austria and the United Arab Emirates, which poses a challenge to prosecutors, Hoyte said. It was pointed out that some defendants voluntarily surrendered while others fled.
Benjamin Herzog, one of the founders of EXW Wallet, pleaded guilty last December, BehindMLM reported.
Some of those found guilty in the October 23 sentencing plan to appeal their convictions.
The EXW wallet was launched at the end of 2019 and the daily return on investment for EXW tokens ranges from 0.1% to 0.32%. The fraud scheme collapsed a few months later in 2020.
The fraudsters also promoted real estate projects, and some of the defendants are being investigated over a cannabis-related scam in which they allegedly stole $17.2 million (€16 million) from 17,000 victims.
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