SNEAK PEEK
- Jebara Igbara pleaded guilty to cheating investors in a Ponzi scheme aimed at Muslim-American community of New York.
- The influencer offered to buy Bitcoin at above-market rates and sent counterfeit wire transfer receipts to victims.
- To justify the premium, he said that traditional crypto exchanges were restricting his Bitcoin buying capacity.
Jebara Igbara, an Instagram influencer based in New York, has made headlines for illegal reasons. Igbara has pleaded guilty to a number of crimes that even include stealing Bitcoin worth $2.5 million from his followers.
On Instagram and other social platforms, he shared his willingness to pay for several cryptocurrencies and that too at 3.5% to 5% more than their market value.
Based on the court filing, Igbara, upon getting the crypto, used to send the victims forged images of wire transfer confirmations to assure that money had been sent by him for the cryptocurrency, something that never really happened.
He had a ‘now-inoperative’ Instagram account before being charged and arrested in March last year. The account had one million followers at a time and Igbara used to give ample funds to fast-food workers and individuals in grocery stores.
Among all of his unbelievable social media stunts is the one wherein he handed out $30,000 at a Burger King in Queens, New York close-by 50 cent, the popular rapper.
The theft came as an aspect of $8 million coincidental fake schemes, where members of the Muslim-American community were cheated by the accused who requested the funds for investments in electronics resale & stock and buying of COVID-19 PPE. In reality, all he was doing was running a Ponzi scheme and using the money for gambling and his own expenses.
Based on the decision by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of New York, the influencer will face imprisonment for over 20 years.
Special Agent-in-Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, Thomas Fattorusso, said that people who were a part of the Ponzi scheme were promised a high return rate in a short duration. Talking about those who fell victim to the Bitcoin advance fee scheme, they were assured more than the present market value for their Bitcoin.
