Bitcoin Rodney, Who Made Away With $8M, is Arrested on Fraud Charges

Rodney Burton, who promoted the fake HyperVerse crypto investment scheme, was arrested and detained on accusations of fraud.

US authorities arrested “Bitcoin Rodney” for cheating victims out of more than $7 million in total through a fake investment scheme, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) alleges according to court filings on Jan. 5, CoinDesk reported.

Burton was arrested in Florida and will be charged with promoting the fake crypto investment scheme, court filings indicate. The scheme is also known as HyperCapital, HyperFund, or HyperNation. The unincorporated entity was founded sometime in 2020.

False promises

Andrew J. Accardi, a special agent with the IRS’s Criminal Investigations department, commented that a network of HyperVerse promotors based in the US had lied to current and potential investors. They claimed that anyone who bought a membership in the fund would get up to 1% a day in passive rewards. Eventually, HyperVerse would double or even triple the investor’s initial deposit.

According to the filing Burton, the mastermind behind the scheme, got 562 wire transfers or cashier’s checks from individual investors, pocketing more than $7.8 million. He was arrested on Friday in Florida and will stand trial in Maryland.

Platform behind the fund didn’t exist

According to a recent investigative report by Guardian Australia, thousands of people lost millions in the HyperVerse crypto scheme. An entity known as HyperTech operated the scheme, whose CEO was named as one Steven Reece Lewis. He doesn’t seem to exist, according to the medium.

Global consequences of the scam

People all over the world have been affected. Stephen Jones, Australia’s Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, will demand an explanation from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) as to why it didn’t warn consumers about the HyperVerse crypto scheme, unlike watchdogs in other countries.