'Bitcoin Rodney' admits guilt in massive $1.8B HyperFund cryptocurrency scam
Rodney Burton, known as 'Bitcoin Rodney,' could spend up to five years behind bars after admitting to charges of conspiring to run an unlicensed money transmission operation.
A 56-year-old man from Florida has entered a guilty plea in a federal courtroom for his role in conspiring to run an unlicensed money transmission enterprise linked to a fraudulent cryptocurrency platform worth $1.8 billion.
Based on an official announcement from the United States Attorney's Office representing the District of Maryland, Rodney Burton, who goes by the alias "Bitcoin Rodney," participated in a conspiracy to deliver unlicensed money transmitting operations to advance HyperFund, an international wire-fraud operation.
The guilty plea entered by Burton was made public on Wednesday by Kelly O. Hayes, the US Attorney representing the District of Maryland, along with investigators from the Washington division of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation department and Homeland Security Investigations based in New York.
HyperFund ranks among the most substantial cryptocurrency fraud operations in history, inflicting financial harm on thousands of victims across the globe. The scheme's scale is comparable to other notorious Ponzi-style failures within the cryptocurrency sector, including OneCoin, which defrauded investors of more than $4 billion, and BitConnect, which resulted in estimated investor losses exceeding $2 billion.
According to prosecutors, HyperFund made false guarantees to investors about receiving daily passive earnings ranging from 0.5% to 1%, misleadingly attributing these distributions to cryptocurrency-mining revenues that the operation never actually generated.
Burton maintained control over multiple corporate entities that claimed to provide consulting services and directly pocketed no less than $7.8 million in funds from the fraudulent operation, based on information in the official announcement.
Burton faces five years
In January 2024, federal law enforcement officials in Maryland filed criminal charges against two additional persons for masterminding the fraudulent scheme. Fellow conspirators Sam Lee, an Australian national aged 35, and Brenda Chunga, a Maryland resident, were hit with charges including conspiracy to commit securities fraud along with wire fraud.
The sentencing hearing for Chunga has experienced numerous postponements and is currently rescheduled for June 29, whereas Lee, identified as the alleged co-founder of HyperFund, has not yet been convicted of any criminal charges.
HyperCapital made its debut in January 2022 positioning itself as a decentralized finance ecosystem, before undergoing a relaunch six months afterward under the name HyperFund. Following multiple rebrandings, the fraudulent operation ultimately fell apart in November 2022.
Burton is looking at a potential maximum prison term of five years in a federal correctional facility for the charge of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, with his sentencing hearing set to take place on July 23.