Corrections officer guilty of $600K crypto pension scheme

A former New Jersey corrections officer has pleaded guilty to a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme, resulting in the loss of $600,000.

John DeSalvo was charged with securities fraud after marketing a self-made digital token called Blazar Token to police officers, fire personnel, EMTs, and first responders.

DeSalvo marketed this coin as a “crypto pension,” which promised investors financial stability and the promise of the coin growing over time.

The defendant utilized social media platforms to fraudulently obtain investments in the token “through a series of misrepresentations,” the press release reads.

This included the notion that Blazar was in the process of becoming, or was, an already secure token approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission while claiming that the token could be “purchases through payroll deductions and/or ACH transactions.”

Furthermore, DeSalvo told investors that the token was legitimate and had been approved for inclusion in several prevalent cryptocurrency exchanges.

DeSalvo expressed that this deal came at “zero risk” with a return rate of 20%.

The defendant secured investments of $620,000 from over 200 investors.

From there, he used the money for personal expenses and investments in volatile cryptocurrencies and payments to prior investors in a Ponzi scheme.

DeSalvo then sold off his tokens (41 billion), causing the price of the token to drop dramatically, which in turn crippled the currency.

The defendant leveraged social media platforms to support his schemes – the second involved “an investment group through Brokerage-1, an online trading platform.”

Through social media, he marketed the investment group using false stories of his success as an investor.

An example of his claims: “I have been averaging close to 1200% over the last 2 years. I am in the top 1,000th percent in the world. That’s the truth, the return rates I have been averaging are so high that people are throwing money at me to invest.”

DeSalvo managed to obtain $100,000 from 20 investors in the group.

After receiving the funds, he engaged in trading practices for a brief period before placing these funds into personal accounts – DeSalvo then used this money for personal gain.

DeSalvo is facing 20 years imprisonment with an additional fine of up to $5 million.