The 46-year-old Staten Island-based crypto trader is now facing 9 different charges as he swindled nearly $200,000 in cryptocurrency and cash by duping the investors. Patrick McDonnell, also known as “Jason Flack, owner of a firm called Cabbage Tech Corporation has been charged with Wire fraud after soliciting the investments on Facebook and Twitter and allegedly stole that money for personal use. Later, on March 26th, he was taken into police custody and planned to present before the US Magistrate Judge Sanket J. Bulsara.
The US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn recently announced nine different charges against Patrick McDonnell for defrauding at least 10 investors who were trading in the cryptocurrency. As per the U.S Department of Justice press release, McDonnell had used the social media platforms to source out the funds and as reported in a press release that the “defendant reportedly stole the money for personal use.”
“As alleged, the defendant defrauded investors by making false promises and sending them fraudulent balance statements, hiding the fact that he was stealing their money for his personal use,” stated United States Attorney Donoghue.
According to special agent-in-charge of United States Postal Inspection Service – Philip R. Bartlett, “he used to smoke and mirrors to allegedly dupe investors into paying his company—Cabbage Tech, for advice and strategies on crypto-currency trading.”
Digging deep into the matter, He portrayed himself as an expert crypto trader during the time period from November 2014 to January 2018. Later, he promised the investors to offer trading advice, strategies, and purchase and trade cryptocurrency on their behalf. McDonnell had also put on work his Staten Island-based company, Cabbage Tech Corporation, also known as Coin Drop Markets on the same base of providing crypto trading-related services. surprisingly, neither McDonnell nor Cabbage Tech offered investment services and allegedly stole the money collected from the investors. In order to keep the investors in check, he also sent the investors fake balance sheets showing them that their investments had been growing. When investors requested for withdrawal of their investments, he started giving excuses for payment delays and later he stopped answering them.
McDonnell duped at least ten investors and stole at least $194,000 in cash. In addition to that he stole 4.41 bitcoin worth $17,500 at time of press release, 620 Ethereum classic ($2,914), 1,342,634 verges ($9,965), and 206 Litecoin ($12,304).
As declared by attorney for the Eastern District of New York “The defendant’s fraud ends now, he will be held responsible for his criminal conduct,” and he will be prisoned a maximum 20 years If proven guilty and convicted.
