A Texas man was sentenced to 23 years in prison for his role in the Meta-1 Coin fraud that stole $20M from nearly 1,000 investors

Robert Dunlap, a trustee of the Meta-1 Coin Trust, was sentenced by a federal judge after being convicted on two counts of mail fraud for helping market and sell a fictional cryptocurrency from 2018 to 2023 that was falsely claimed to be backed by $44B in gold and a $1B art collection including works by Picasso and Van Gogh. Dunlap and co-conspirators used automated trading bots to artificially inflate Meta-1 Coin's price and volume on a website Dunlap created, and instead of distributing coins to investors, used the funds for personal expenses and luxury cars including a Ferrari. The SEC had ordered an asset freeze as early as March 2020, and prosecutors noted at sentencing that Dunlap was “unrepentant” and that his lies grew over the years.