CoinDeal’s $45 million crypto fraud case makes one more defendant
Bryan Lee is now charged by indictment with one count of conspiracy, two counts of mail fraud, one count of wire fraud, and three counts of engaging in monetary transactions in criminally derived property.
The US Department of Justice has announced charges against Bryan Lee for his alleged participation in CoinDeal, an investment fraud scheme that defrauded more than 10,000 victims of over $45 million.
According to court documents, Lee allegedly conspired with Neil Chandran and others to defraud investors in crypto and metaverse companies that Chandran controlled and operated under the banner of “ViRSE”, including Free Vi Lab, Studio Vi Inc., ViDelivery Inc., ViMarket Inc., and Skalex USA Inc.
Neil Chandran allegedly misled investors by falsely promising extremely high returns on the premise that his companies were about to be acquired by a consortium of wealthy buyers.
Bryan Lee faces up to 20 years for each fraud count
Bryan Lee was the nominee owner and director of ViMarket, and took direction from Chandran on how to disburse investor funds received into ViMarket’s bank accounts. The two defendants allegedly misappropriated millions of dollars of investor funds and spent it on luxury cars and real estate.
Neil Chandran was arrested in June 2022. The DoJ indicted Chandran in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska on three counts of wire fraud and two counts of monetary transaction in unlawful proceeds for his involvement in CoinDeal.
Michael Glaspie, who fraudulently marketed “CoinDeal” pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in February 2023 and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 16.
Bryan Lee is now charged by indictment with one count of conspiracy, two counts of mail fraud, one count of wire fraud, and three counts of engaging in monetary transactions in criminally derived property.
If convicted, Bryan Lee faces up to 20 years in prison for each of the wire fraud, mail fraud, and conspiracy counts, and up to 10 years in prison for each count of engaging in unlawful monetary transactions.
SEC also sued CoinDeal
Earlier this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a civil complaint against the individuals and corporate entities involved in the fraud for having raised more than $45 million from sales of unregistered securities to tens of thousands of investors worldwide.
Neil Chandran, Garry Davidson, Michael Glaspie, Amy Mossel, Linda Knott, AEO Publishing Inc, Banner Co-Op, Inc, and BannersGo, LLC got sued for false and misleading statements to investors regarding the purported value of CoinDeal, from at least January 2019 to 2022.
Defendants claimed that investors could generate extravagant returns by investing in CoinDeal, a blockchain technology that would be sold for trillions of dollars to a group of prominent and wealthy buyers.
However, the sale of CoinDeal never occurred and no distributions were made to CoinDeal investors, the SEC states, adding that the defendants collectively misappropriated millions of dollars of investor funds for personal use.
