Pablo Renato Rodriguez, the co-founder of AirBit Club with Gutemberg Dos Santos, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for orchestrating the massive global AirBit Club pyramid scheme.

Rodriguez and his co-conspirators deceived individuals into investing in AirBit Club, a purported cryptocurrency mining and trading company, and executed a sophisticated money laundering operation to hide their illegal profits pilfered from AirBit Club.

Rodriguez and his co-defendants collectively have been ordered to forfeit their fraudulent proceeds of AirBit Club, which include seized or restrained assets consisting of U.S. currency, Bitcoin, and real estate currently valued at approximately $100 million.

Rodriguez and Dos Santos co-founded AirBit Club in 2015. They coordinated a scheme in which victim-investors were induced to invest in AirBit Club based on the false promise of guaranteed profits in exchange for cash investments in club “memberships”. AirBit Club, through its founders, as well as its promoters, marketed AirBit Club as a multilevel marketing club in the cryptocurrency industry. Promoters falsely promised the victims that AirBit Club earned returns on cryptocurrency mining and trading and that the victims would earn passive, guaranteed daily returns on any membership purchased.

In furtherance of the AirBit Club Scheme, the victims were fraudulently induced to buy memberships in cash, including in the Southern District of New York. While the victims saw “profits” accumulate on their Online Portal, those representations were false; no Bitcoin mining or trading on behalf of victims in fact took place. Instead, Rodriguez and his co-conspirators enriched themselves and spent victim money on cars, jewelry, and luxury homes, and financed more extravagant expos to recruit more victims.

Rodriguez, 40, of Irvine, California, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release. He was further ordered to pay a forfeiture of $65 million and to forfeit various items of property, including: (i) $999,936.22 formerly held in escrow by Insured International Aircraft Title Service LLC for the Gulfstream Jet with Tail Number N370Z and Serial Number 2082; (ii) 1,322.98963846 in BTC seized from various Bitcoin wallets; (iii) $896,483.00 in United States currency seized from Rodriguez’s California residence; (iv) Rodriguez’s residence located at 117 Amber Sky in the City of Irvine, California 92618; (v) various watches and jewelry seized from Rodriguez’s California residence; and (vi) 2,499.997 in BTC seized from various Bitcoin wallets.