According to Decrypt, an Australian and two Americans have been charged with orchestrating a $1.9 billion cryptocurrency scam based around a purported DeFi platform, HyperFund. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) accused Australian citizen Sam Lee of co-founding HyperFund and Rodney Burton and Brenda Chunga of promoting it, together defrauding investors of $1.89 billion by claiming that investment returns would come from non-existent cryptocurrency mining operations.
From June 2020 to November 2022, the trio allegedly offered and sold investment contracts to the public through HyperFund, making false claims, including HyperFund memberships giving investors between 0.5% to 1% daily in passive rewards until the company either doubled or tripled the investor's initial investment. HyperFund claimed that its payments would be partially disbursed from its revenues from large-scale crypto-mining operations, which the DOJ said did not exist.
Lee and Chunga are charged with conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, while Burton is charged with running an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Chunga pleaded guilty. The trio faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison if convicted. The DOJ noted that HyperFund is also known as HyperTech, HyperCapital, HyperVerse, and HyperNation.