Instagram Influencer Sues for Stealing $2.5M in Bitcoin | Tech Reddy

New York-based Instagram developer Jebara Igbara — who goes by the online pseudonym Jay Mazini — has have sinned to a number of crimes including the theft of $2.5 million Bitcoin from his disciples.

Igbara said on his Instagram and other social media accounts that he is willing to pay above-market prices for various cryptocurrencies, generally around 3.5% to 5% above market value.

The hacker reportedly justified the payment by saying that traditional crypto exchanges limit the amount of Bitcoin he can buy.

According to court records, after receiving the cryptocurrency, Igbara sent his victims photos of wire transfer confirmations saying he had paid for the cryptocurrency as promised.

In fact, the payment was not made.

Instagram’s Bitcoin influencer program

Until his trial and arrest in March 2021, Igbara maintained a now-defunct Instagram account, which at one point had one million followers, and sent large sums of money to people in shopping malls. including fast food workers. .

In one of his most famous works in the social network, Igbara send it more than $30,000 in cash at a Burger King in Queens, New York with the famous singer 50 Cent.

The Bitcoin theft came as part of a series of overlapping fraud schemes valued at $8 million, in which the suspects allegedly defrauded members of the Muslim-American community in New York by asking them for their money. about investing in stocks, buying electricity, and buying COVID. -19 personal protective equipment (PPE).

He was still running a Ponzi scheme that claimed the court’s release, and “misappropriated nearly all of the money for his expenses and gambling,” according to authorities.

Igbara now faces up to 20 years in prison, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.

Thomas Fattorusso, Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, said that “those involved in the Ponzi scheme all knew that there was a high rate of return in the short term, as the Victims of the Bitcoin forward payment scheme were guaranteed above the current market value of their Bitcoin.

He added: “This multi-million dollar case is a reminder to those thinking of investing: Be suspicious of investments with larger-than-life promises because the story is too good to be true , perhaps.”