The founder of Miami-based crypto project CluCoin has pleaded guilty to stealing over $1 million from investors and spending the money at online casinos.
According to court documents filed in a Florida court last week, CluCoin’s founder – 40-year-old Austin Michael Taylor of Maryland – admitted to regularly transferring funds earmarked for CluCoin-related projects to his own personal crypto wallets and then transferring them to online crypto casinos.
Taylor founded CluCoin in the spring of 2021, marketing the project to his “large Internet following” as a streamer as a way to fund charities.
After CluCoin’s subsequent ICO that May, the project’s trading volume and value declined “precipitously,” according to court documents, prompting Taylor to steer CluCoin “away from its original charity focus.”
Over 2022, while he was managing CluCoin and making promises to investors about its activities – including the purported development of a metaverse-based video game called “Xenia” – his lawyers said, Taylor was “secretly succumbing to a gambling addiction.”
In total, he transferred $1.14 million worth of investor funds to online casinos including Stake.com, his lawyers said.
In January 2023, Taylor publicly admitted to using investor funds for online gambling and voluntarily ceded control of the project to his business associates.
He pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud on Aug. 15. As part of his plea agreement, Taylor agreed to forfeit $1.14 million in ill-gotten gains for victim restitution.
Taylor is set to be sentenced by the US District Court Judge Jacqueline Becerra of the Southern District of Florida on Oct. 31 at 10:00 a.m. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.