Satish Kumbhani
Indian financial fraudster.1
About
Bitconnect (stylized bitconnect and also spelled BitConnect, ticker code BCC) was an open-source cryptocurrency from 2016 to 2018 that was connected with a high-yield investment program, a type of Ponzi scheme. After the platform administrators closed the earning platform on January 16, 2018, and refunded the users' investments in BCC following a 92% coin value crash, confidence was lost and the value of the coin plummeted to below $1 from a previous high of nearly $525.
From Wikipedia’s article on Satish Kumbhani, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2
Companies
- BitconnectFounder6
Career
Occupation: businessperson.4
- Date not recordedFounded Bitconnect3
Personal life
- CitizenshipIndia5
Legal issues and controversies
Criticism and collapse
Bitconnect was suspected of being a Ponzi scheme because of its multilevel marketing structure and impossibly high payouts (1% daily compounded interest). Bitconnect interest fluctuated greatly with the volatility of Bitcoin, which its value was tied to.
The Bitconnect Coin was among the world's top 20 most successful cryptocurrency tokens until its price collapsed after traders began losing confidence. BCC rose from a post-ICO price of $0.17 to an all-time high of US$463 in December 2017; it declined to US$0.40 as of March 11, 2019. Bitconnect released outstanding loans at US$363.62 to the Bitconnect Wallet in the form of BCC. However, soon after that news the internal exchange price and liquidity collapsed resulting in a nearly complete loss of value.
Legal issues
On January 16, 2018, Bitconnect announced it would shut down its cryptocurrency exchange and lending operation after regulators from Texas and North Carolina issued a cease and desist order against it. On January 31, 2018, a U.S. District Court, Western District of Kentucky, granted a temporary restraining order freezing Bitconnect's assets and "to disclose cryptocurrency wallet and trading account addresses, as well as the identities of anyone to whom Bitconnect has sent digital currencies within the last 90 days".
In September 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Bitconnect, alongside its founder Indian Satish Kumbhani, American Glenn Arcaro, who served as Bitconnect's lead national promoter in the United States from August 2017 to January 2018, and Future Money LTD, a company Arcaro created to lure into Bitconnect's lending program. The SEC alleged that Bitconnect defrauded U.S. investors a total of $2.4 billion.
Parallel to SEC civil charges, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) had initiated criminal charges against Arcaro. On September 1, 2021, Arcaro pleaded guilty of criminal charges pressed by the DOJ which includes conspiracy to commit wire fraud and criminal forfeiture. The DOJ also indicted Kumbhani on various federal charges in February 2022, including money laundering and fraud.
On January 12, 2023, a federal district court in San Diego ordered that Arcaro pay $17 million in restitution to be distributed to approximately 800 victims. He also agreed to forfeit more than $24 million, which could also be used in the future to repay victims.
From Wikipedia’s article on Satish Kumbhani (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1WikidataSatish Kumbhani on Wikidata
- 2WikipediaSatish Kumbhani on Wikipedia
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- 6WikidataBitconnect, Founder