- Asa Saint Clair lured more than 60 victims into providing loans to a made-up organization
- They lost hundreds of thousands of dollars
Asa Saint Clair, the president of a fictitious United Nations affiliate, has been convicted of defrauding investors in a crypto offering, a jury determined after a one-week jury trial. The 49-year-old resident of Washington, D.C. was convicted on charges of wire fraud.
The crime
He conceived of an investment scheme, which lured more than 60 victims into providing loans to a made-up organization he called the “World Sports Alliance,” according to a Department of Justice press release Friday.
The setup
Saint Clair claimed to be a UN affiliate promoting sports values of sports that was developing a digital coin called IGOBIT. This coin guaranteed good returns on investment. The scheme was set in motion in fall of 2017 and continued until September 2019.
As US Attorney for New York’s Southern District Damian Williams put it, the perpetrator was only “promoting the balance of his bank accounts.”
Victims lost hundreds of thousands, Saint Clair faces 20 years
More than 60 people fell victim to Saint Clair’s scam. They lost hundreds of thousands of dollars according to a PR of the DoJ.
The perpetrator awaits his sentence on July 19, 2022. The maximum punishment for wire fraud is 20 years.
The background of the scheme
The first report of the crime was in November 2019, when CoinDesk reported Saint Clair had been accused of defrauded investors using the IGOBIT digital token. He promised those who bought into the “World Sports Alliance” equity as long as they used his token to make purchases.
Ultimately, IGOBIT was never created, and investors in the project never got any tokens.
According to a statement released by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman at the time:
As alleged, Asa Saint Clair used World Sports Alliance, a sham affiliate of the United Nations, as a vehicle to defraud lenders. Saint Clair allegedly defrauded investors in IGOBIT, a digital currency he claimed WSA was developing, but which turned out to be the fraudulent bait with which to lure victim investors.
Saint Clair embezzled the money for his own use
Special Agent-in-Charge Peter Fitzhugh added in another statement:
Saint Clair allegedly touted his company as promoting the values of sports and peace for a better world, yet defrauded all those who invested in his sham company. As alleged, Saint Clair used the money he earned through deceit to fund a lavish lifestyle for him and his family.