Austria has handed over imprisonment judgment to five people over a $16 million scam. According to local media reports, five people have been sentenced to jail time over involvement in a $21.6 million Bitcoin and real estate Ponzi fraud.
The scammers spent a lot of money on private planes, fancy vehicles, nightclubs, and even a shark tank while defrauding 40,000 victims. One of the biggest fraud cases in Austria to date, the case was heard at the Klagenfurt Regional Court over a period of sixty days.
The trial, which lasted 60 days and included more than 300 hours of hearings, was held at the Klagenfurt Regional Court. After much discussion, Judge Claudia Bandion-Ortner handed down the verdicts.
The case comprised eleven individuals from Italy, Croatia, and Austria. Out of these, only 5 have been sentenced so far.
Two suspects were sentenced to five years in jail, two others to thirty months, and one to eighteen months. Other people are still at large, while five more were acquitted.
Interestingly, the sentencing comes at a time when Austria has taken a vigilant stance towards crypto scams, being in tandem with global players.
Austria’s Crypto Scam Comes Amid Rise In Ponzi Schemes Across World
Over the past years, crypto Ponzi schemes have been a huge issue for various nations. It has also grown in number as more players enter the market.
A Ponzi scheme is a type of investment fraud in which money donated by new investors is used to pay out alleged returns to current investors. Ponzi scheme operators frequently entice new investors by offering to put money in ventures that are said to offer large returns with little to no risk.
Instead of making any real investments, the scammers in many Ponzi schemes concentrate on luring new investors to fulfill their promises to previous investors and take some of the “invested” money for their own personal benefit.
Over the years, the Austrian government has turned more vigilant towards these schemes, trying to curb them and possibly stopping them if possible.
Austria Crypto Laws: What Do They Say
The Austrian government keeps a careful eye on changes and keeps supporting emerging technologies like digital assets, distributed ledger technology, and blockchain.
Austria has not legally recognized cryptocurrencies but has been supportive of them. Since there was no legal definition of cryptocurrencies at the time of the law’s inception, they originally caused financial market regulators in Austria a great deal of trouble. However, the nations government later recognized “digital assets” as decentralized currencies.
Austria’s supervisory body for crypto-assets, the Financial Market Authority (FMA), is in charge of upholding openness and integrity. Customers and market players are also shielded from dishonest and careless behavior by the FMA.