A 56-year-old Florida resident has pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business in connection with a $1.8 billion fraudulent crypto platform.

According to a statement from the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, Rodney “Bitcoin Rodney” Burton conspired to provide unlicensed money transmitting services to promote HyperFund, a global wire-fraud scheme.

Kelly O. Hayes, US Attorney for the District of Maryland and agents from the Washington Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation unit and Homeland Security Investigations, New York, announced Burton’s guilty plea on Wednesday.

HyperFund is one of the largest crypto fraud schemes, which impacted thousands of investors worldwide. It compares to some of the bigger Ponzi-style collapses in the space, such as OneCoin, which took over $4 billion, and BitConnect, which is estimated to have caused over $2 billion in investor losses.

Prosecutors said HyperFund falsely promised investors daily passive returns of 0.5% to 1%, claiming the payouts came from crypto-mining revenue it didn’t actually have.

According to the plea agreement, from June 2020 to January 2022, Burton promoted HyperFund and used investors’ funds to enrich himself.  

Related: Law enforcement freezes $41M connected to $150M crypto Ponzi collapse

Burton also controlled several companies that purported to offer consulting services and personally received at least $7.8 million in proceeds from the operation, according to the announcement. 

Burton faces five years

In January 2024, federal prosecutors in Maryland announced charges against two other individuals for orchestrating the scheme. Co-conspirators Sam Lee, a 35-year-old Australian, and Brenda Chunga from Maryland, faced charges of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud.

Chunga’s sentencing has been delayed multiple times and is now scheduled for June 29, while Lee, the alleged co-founder of HyperFund, has not been found guilty of anything.

HyperCapital was launched in January 2022 as a DeFi ecosystem, which was relaunched six months later as HyperFund. After several rebrands, the scheme collapsed in November 2022.

Burton faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, and sentencing is scheduled for July 23.

Magazine: The end of anon? AI could unmask crypto’s hidden identities