In the complex and cunning world of cryptocurrency, where fortunes are made and lost in the blink of an eye, there's always room for a good scam story.
And what better place to hear all about the latest saga than Netflix - the streaming giant that brought us similar tales of deception like Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened and Inventing Anna.
Enter Bitconned, a documentary that delves into the rise and fall of Centra Tech - a cryptocurrency firm that, according to the Department of Justice, scammed victims out of more than $25 million worth of digital funds, shaking the industry to its core.
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The trailer is narrated by Ray Trapani, the company's COO and co-founder, who somewhat shockingly opens with: "Ever since I was a kid I've always wanted to be a criminal”.
So, what exactly did Trapani do, and where is he now? We've got all the deets, but be warned if you haven’t already seen the documentary - there will be spoilers.
Centra Tech: the deceptive debit card dream
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In 2017, when Bitcoin was truly taking hold of the world, Ray Trapani saw an opportunity he couldn't resist, thanks to a suggestion from a friend to create a crypto debit card. This is what sparked the inception of Centra Tech.
And so, the company burst onto the scene with its 'revolutionary' debit card for cryptocurrency transactions. It promised to make crypto as easy to use as your traditional Visa or Mastercard, and had investors flocking in droves.
However, as the doc reveals, there was one problem - Trapani, along with his Centra Tech associates, had little to no clue about the crypto business. In his own words from the trailer: "We didn't know anything about this business, but it didn't matter at all. It was too easy." This brazen approach laid the foundations for what would become one of the first high-profile fraud cases in the crypto era.
The mastermind behind the fraud
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In April 2018, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dropped the hammer on Centra Tech, with Trapani at the center of the storm.
The SEC alleged that Trapani was the "mastermind" behind Centra Tech's elaborate fraud scheme. Together with his co-defendants, Sohrab 'Sam' Sharma and Robert Farkas, they were accused of enticing investors with false claims about their product and fictitious relationships with reputable financial institutions.
The twist (spoiler alert)
Things get really interesting when we find out what happened to Trapani.
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Despite pleading guilty alongside his colleagues Sharma and Farkas, Trapani didn’t quite face the same consequences.
Sharma and Farkas found themselves behind bars, paying the price for their cryptocurrency shenanigans. But Trapani faced his sentencing with a surprising result: zero jail time. The judge apparently praised Trapani's cooperation during the investigation, sparing him from incarceration.
Where is Trapani now?
The Bitconned doc leaves us with a final update on Trapani's life post-Centra Tech. According to the doc, the judge ordered him to pay his victims a hefty sum of $2.9 million.
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But what’s really surprising is Trapani's plans for the future. He's reportedly gearing up to launch a new company, focussing on providing loans with an interest rate of 50%.