The Rap Sheet
Crypto's most notorious criminals. Arrested, indicted, fugitive, or still tweeting.
Latest from The Rap Sheet
Richard Heart: HEX Founder Detained in Istanbul on a Finnish Tax Fraud Red Notice
Turkish police reportedly detained the HEX founder in Istanbul on a Finnish red notice over alleged tax fraud worth hundreds of millions of euros.
Ajay Shinjin: Jailed Over a £200,000 SIM-Swap Crypto Theft That Paid for Gold Grills and Dubai
Criminals hijacked four strangers' phone numbers and emptied their crypto. Ajay Shinjin spent his £44,000 on gold teeth and Dubai. He got 2.5 years.
Aiden Pleterski: The 'Crypto King' on Trial Over C$41.5M, With No Lawyer
Investors gave the self-styled Crypto King C$41.5M. A trustee says he invested 1.6% of it. Now he faces a fraud jury in Toronto without a lawyer.
Raheim Hamilton: Empire Market Co-Founder Gets 40 Years Over a $430M Dark Web Bazaar
Two men ran a $430M online drug bazaar paid in bitcoin, then it vanished in 2020 with users' money inside. Now one of them has 40 years.
Daniel Rhyne: The IT Engineer Who Held His Own Company Hostage for 20 Bitcoin
He locked his own employer out of its network and demanded 20 bitcoin. His web searches gave him away. A judge gave him 32 months.
Ronald Spektor: The Fake Coinbase Agent Who Took $16M
A Brooklyn man posed as Coinbase security, took $15.9M from about 100 people and bragged on Telegram. He got 4 to 12 years.
Adam Iza: 'The Godfather' Who Had LA Sheriff's Deputies on His Payroll
Adam Iza got 15 years for a violent Bitcoin robbery and kidnapping. The bigger story was how many Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies went down with him.
Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang: They Helped Convict Bankman-Fried and Paid No CFTC Fine
Caroline Ellison ran the fund that lost $8 billion of FTX customer money. In August 2026 the CFTC closed its case against her and Gary Wang with no fine.
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Also in The Rap Sheet
Patrick Yaroch: FBI Spy-Catcher Charged With Taking Nearly $1M in Crypto
Zyaire Wilkins: Accused of Hiding Crypto-Stealing Malware in 8 Steam Games
Rossen Iossifov: The Government Won His Crypto in Court. Prosecutors Say He Moved It From Prison
Peter Stokes: Accused of an $8 Million Ransom Demand, He Posted the Diamonds on Snapchat
Guo Wengui: He Sold a Revolution and Gold-Backed Crypto, Both Were Fake
More from The Rap Sheet
AlphaRaccoon: The Google Engineer Who Rigged Polymarket for $1.2M
A Google engineer saw GOOGLE CONFIDENTIAL in red text. He clicked through it anyway. Then bet $2.75 million using what he found inside.
Rathnakishore Giri: 9 Years for a $10M Bitcoin Lie
The Ohio investment manager who drove Lamborghinis while running a $10M Ponzi scheme got nine years. He kept scamming after pleading guilty.
Dritan Kapllani: The Teen ZachXBT Ties to $19M in Crypto Thefts
A wallet shown off on a Discord call led ZachXBT to an 18-year-old he ties to $19M in thefts. Two men have pleaded guilty. Kapllani is uncharged.
The SEE Crew: $263M Stolen on Discord
They met online gaming. They stole $263M. They spent it on Lamborghinis and $500K nightclub tabs. Now they're going to prison one by one.
Operation Level Up: The FBI Crackdown on Pig Butchering Compounds
The FBI warned 8,935 pig butchering victims mid-scam and saved $562M. US prosecutors then went after the compound bosses and froze $938M in crypto.
France: 88 Indicted in the Wrench Attack Sweep
France charged 88 people, ten of them minors, over a wave of crypto kidnappings. The attacks kept coming, and the first big sentence came from Morocco.
Robert Dunlap: 23 Years for the $44B Gold Lie
Sold a coin he said was backed by Picassos and $44 billion in gold. Got 23 years.
Jonathan Spalletta: Convicted of Draining $54M From Uranium Finance
A jury convicted him of hacking Uranium Finance twice and spending $54M on Magic cards, Pokémon cards and a Roman coin. He called crypto 'fake internet money'.
John Daghita: Charged With Stealing $46M in Seized Crypto From the US Marshals
A 21-year-old hired to look after crypto seized by the US government is accused of taking $46 million of it, partly on a live video call.
Axiom Exchange: The Insider Trading Exposé That Broke Polymarket
ZachXBT tweeted five sentences. $39.7 million in prediction bets followed. Then he named Axiom and published the receipts.
Andean Medjedovic: Charged Over $65M in DeFi Raids, Now Seeking a Trump Pardon
A Canadian maths prodigy is charged with taking $65M from two crypto platforms. He calls it trading, remains at large and has hired lobbyists for a pardon.
Daren Li: He Cut Off His Ankle Monitor, Then Got 20 Years for $73M
He admitted laundering $73.6M taken from Americans by Cambodian scam centres, cut off his ankle monitor and fled. The judge gave him 20 years anyway.
Roger Ver: Bitcoin Jesus Falls From Grace
Bitcoin's first great promoter was arrested in Spain over an unpaid exit tax. He paid $49.9 million and walked away without a conviction.
CZ Zhao: Binance's $4.3 Billion Fine
Binance paid $4.3 billion and its founder pleaded guilty. Changpeng Zhao served four months, was pardoned by Trump, and still owns most of it.
Justin Sun: The Teflon Troll of Crypto
The SEC accused him of fraud and wash trading. He walked away without paying a cent, then went to war with the Trump family's crypto firm.
Sam Bankman-Fried: The $8 Billion Fraud
FTX's founder took $8 billion of customer money and got 25 years. His appeal failed in June 2026; he is now asking the Supreme Court and Trump.
Su Zhu & Kyle Davies: Three Arrows Capital
Their hedge fund Three Arrows Capital collapsed in 2022 owing creditors more than $3 billion. Su Zhu went to prison in Singapore; Kyle Davies never has.
Alex Mashinsky: Celsius's Lying Machine
Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky promised 'unbank yourself', froze $4.7 billion of customer money and got 12 years. Now New York has banned him for life.
Do Kwon: The $40 Billion Vaporizer
Terra's founder ran, was caught with a forged passport, pleaded guilty in New York and got 15 years. South Korea still wants to try him.
Lichtenstein & Razzlekhan: The Bitfinex Bonnie & Clyde
Ilya Lichtenstein stole 119,754 bitcoin from Bitfinex in 2016. Agents found the keys in his cloud storage. He and his rapper wife are now both free.
Fatih Özer: The Man Who Robbed Turkey and Ran
Thodex froze its customers' money in April 2021 and its founder flew to Albania. He got 11,196 years, won an appeal, and died in prison in 2025.
Satish Kumbhani: BitConnect's Phantom
Accused of running the $2.4 billion BitConnect Ponzi scheme. Indicted in the US in 2022, he has never appeared in an American court.
Ruja Ignatova: The Cryptoqueen
She sold OneCoin, a crypto with no blockchain, for billions, then boarded a flight to Athens in 2017 and vanished. Nine years on, the hunt continues.
Alexander Vinnik: The BTC-e Laundromat
He ran BTC-e, the exchange US prosecutors call a $9 billion laundromat. He pleaded guilty, then a prisoner swap sent him home to Russia.
Zhimin Qian: The Goddess of Wealth
She took about £4.1bn from 128,000 Chinese investors and hid it in 61,000 bitcoin in London. She got 11 years. Her victims are still waiting.
Lazarus Group: North Korea's Crypto Army
North Korea's state hackers took about $6.75 billion in crypto by the end of 2025 and over $1 billion more in 2026. Nobody has been arrested.
Mark Karpelès: The Man Who Lost 850,000 Bitcoin
He ran Mt. Gox, the exchange that lost 850,000 bitcoin in 2014. Twelve years on, its creditors are still being paid back.
Ross Ulbricht: Silk Road Founder, Life Sentence, Then a Pardon
He ran Silk Road, the bitcoin drug market, and got life without parole. Trump pardoned him in 2025. In 2026 he spoke at the GOP convention.