Instagram influencer pleads guilty to stealing $2.5 million in Bitcoin

New York-based Instagram influencer Jebara Igbara – who went by the online pseudonym Jay Mazini – has pleaded guilty for a variety of crimes, including the theft of $2.5 million Bitcoin from his followers.

Igbara allegedly posted on Instagram and other social media accounts that he was willing to pay above market prices for various cryptocurrencies, usually around 3.5% to 5% above market value.

The influencer reportedly justified the premium by claiming that traditional crypto exchanges limited how much Bitcoin he could buy.

According to the court filing, after receiving the crypto, Igbara would then send his victims doctored images of bank transfer confirmations that purported to show he had sent money for the cryptocurrency as promised.

In reality, the payment was never sent.

Instagram Influencers Bitcoin Scheme

Until he was charged and arrested in March 2021, Igbara maintained a now-defunct Instagram account, which at one point had one million followers, where he would give out large sums of money to people in grocery stores as well as to fast food workers.

In one of his most popular social media stunts, Igbara go out over $30,000 in cash at a Burger King in Queens, New York with popular rapper 50 Cent.

The bitcoin theft came as part of a broader set of overlapping fraudulent schemes worth $8 million in which the defendants allegedly defrauded members of the Muslim-American community in New York by soliciting their money for purported investments in stocks, resale of electronics and purchase of COVID. -19 related personal protective equipment (PPE).

He actually ran a Ponzi scheme, the lawsuit alleged, and “misappropriated nearly all of the money for his personal expenses and gambling,” according to authorities.

Igbara now faces up to 20 years in prison, depending on the decision of the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.

Thomas Fattorusso, the special agent for the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, said that “those in the Ponzi scheme were all guaranteed a high return in a short period of time, while the victims of the Bitcoin advance fee scheme were guaranteed above the current market value of their Bitcoin.”

He added: “This multi-million dollar case is a reminder to anyone thinking of investing: Be wary of investments with larger-than-life promises, because if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”