In April of this year, Amir Bruno Elmaani admitted that he created the Oyster Protocol fraudulent scheme and “secretly” issued and sold Pearl tokens, while not paying taxes on the profits. The total damage to the state amounted to $5.5 million. At the same time, Elmaani deliberately integrated the “erroneous” function of issuing Pearl tokens into the project’s smart contracts. This allowed him to carry out an exit scam.
“Amir Elmaani violated his obligation to pay taxes on millions of dollars in profits from the sale of cryptocurrencies. He also violated the trust of investors in the token, which he founded,” said District Attorney Damian Williams.
The Oyster Protocol project was launched in the fall of 2017 and was promoted under the guise of a decentralized data storage protocol. In October 2018, Elmaani issued and sold a huge number of Pearl tokens, which brought down the price of the tokens and devalued investors’ investments. Bruno Block stated that he did this in secret from everyone, even from the project employees:
“I knew full well that the people who bought Pearl tokens were not aware that I had issued many tokens and increased their total supply.”
Elmaani spent the funds on yachts, houses and the launch of new companies not related to cryptocurrencies. He was charged back in 2020.
Source: Bits
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