An Australian-based individual has reportedly admitted guilty towards accusations of scamming investors out of more than $90 million from two US-based crypto funds. 

Specifically, twenty-four-year-old Stefan He Qin has reportedly pleaded guilty to investors scamming via fund squandering of the investment amount received in his crypto funds in New York. 

Per an announcement put out by an Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the security fraud reportedly took place within a period of three years (2017-2020), where Qin ran the fund with the name Virgil Sigma. 

“Stefan He Qin drained almost all of the assets from the $90 million cryptocurrency fund he owned, stealing investors’ money, spending it on indulgences and speculative personal investments, and lying to investors about the performance of the fund and what he had done with their money,” U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss reportedly remarked. 

She further claimed that Qin has then made efforts to illegally acquire money from another fund he operated – dubbed the VQR Multistrategy Fund – in a bid to satisfy the redemption requirements of the defrauded investors in Virgil Sigma.

Numerous investors suffering from the scam reportedly come from the US, and Qin may be subjected to a maximum of 20 years of jail time at sentencing on May 20.

Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge, Peter Fitzhugh, reportedly remarked the two New York-based multi-million dollar crypto turned out to be slush funds accommodating Qin’s extravagant way of living. 

“Qin orchestrated this reprehensible criminal scheme for many years, making misrepresentations and false promises that coaxed investors into pouring millions of dollars into fraudulent cryptocurrency firms, all the while stealing the hard-earned money of his investors.”