Gabriel Hay, 23, of Beverly Hills and Gavin Mayo, 23, of Thousand Oaks were charged on Dec. 20 with scamming investors out of more than $22 million in cryptocurrency. An indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California charges each of the men with a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud and one count of stalking. The United States Attorney’s Office said in a statement that the two engaged in a series of “rug pulls,” in which they created NFT projects, solicited people to invest and then abruptly canceled the project and kept the money.
Both men were arrested by investigators with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Los Angeles. They face up to 20 years in prison for each of the conspiracy and wire fraud counts, and five years on the stalking count.
According to the indictment, from May 2021 to May 2024, the defendants sponsored several NFT and other digital asset projects and then promoted them. They then are alleged to have made materially false and misleading statements regarding the projects being launched and provided false and misleading project “roadmaps” detailing plans for the assets they never intended to fulfill.
Both men pled guilty and were released on $200,000 bail. A trial date is set for Feb. 11.
