Centra Tech: Founders Sentenced

[Russlenat]

On March 4, 2021, Sohrab Sharma, known as Sam Sharma, was sentenced by Manhattan Federal Court to 8 years’ imprisonment, plus three years’ probation. Moreover, he must pay a $20,000 fine while authorities have seized approximately $36 million from his assets as fraud proceeds.

source
https://www.boccadutri.com/centra-tech-founders-sentenced/?utm_source=Mondaq&utm_medium=syndication&utm_campaign=LinkedIn-integration

If you still hold Centra now,  I don't know if you can still that asset.
This was a successful project in the past as they raised a good amount and even listed it in Binance.

Anyone here still holding the coin and hopeful they'll monetize it?

[BigBos]

On March 4, 2021, Sohrab Sharma, known as Sam Sharma, was sentenced by Manhattan Federal Court to 8 years’ imprisonment, plus three years’ probation. Moreover, he must pay a $20,000 fine while authorities have seized approximately $36 million from his assets as fraud proceeds.

source
https://www.boccadutri.com/centra-tech-founders-sentenced/?utm_source=Mondaq&utm_medium=syndication&utm_campaign=LinkedIn-integration

If you still hold Centra now,  I don't know if you can still that asset.
This was a successful project in the past as they raised a good amount and even listed it in Binance.

Anyone here still holding the coin and hopeful they'll monetize it?

this is a very old story. I was also involved in it, and at that time I was holding CTR of around $2500. however, when I heard that the CEO was involved in a fraud case, and had cheated quite a lot of money, I immediately sold the tokens when the price had dropped. however, I think there are still quite a lot of people who sell their CTR too late and still have it in their wallets. well, I can only pray for them to be patient, and immediately get the benefits of another place that is more reliable.

[Russlenat]

On March 4, 2021, Sohrab Sharma, known as Sam Sharma, was sentenced by Manhattan Federal Court to 8 years’ imprisonment, plus three years’ probation. Moreover, he must pay a $20,000 fine while authorities have seized approximately $36 million from his assets as fraud proceeds.

source
https://www.boccadutri.com/centra-tech-founders-sentenced/?utm_source=Mondaq&utm_medium=syndication&utm_campaign=LinkedIn-integration

If you still hold Centra now,  I don't know if you can still that asset.
This was a successful project in the past as they raised a good amount and even listed it in Binance.

Anyone here still holding the coin and hopeful they'll monetize it?

this is a very old story. I was also involved in it, and at that time I was holding CTR of around $2500. however, when I heard that the CEO was involved in a fraud case, and had cheated quite a lot of money, I immediately sold the tokens when the price had dropped. however, I think there are still quite a lot of people who sell their CTR too late and still have it in their wallets. well, I can only pray for them to be patient, and immediately get the benefits of another place that is more reliable.

I don't know if being patient would reward them anymore, the CEO is already in jail and there's no chance the project will continue to be developed as we have not read some updates of this project from the team. If you look at https://etherscan.io/token/0x96A65609a7B84E8842732DEB08f56C3E21aC6f8a, it still has a value of $0.02 and there's some recent transactions.

[cryptoperkele]

This was a successful project in the past as they raised a good amount and even listed it in Binance.

I am sorry but maybe i am missing the point here. How was this successful? It was an illegal ICO from the start so i wouldn't call that a success. Funny thing is that there are others targeted from illegal sale of securities as well, people just don't know it yet until info on that is public. Personally i am amazed that they didn't do research on this before. Or maybe their legal team is just really bad.

[passwordnow]

AFAIK, the promoters of this that includes those celebrities have already been charged for promoting and accepting this scam project. And this has been long time delisted already in Binance since 2018.
https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/360002428872

[Russlenat]

This was a successful project in the past as they raised a good amount and even listed it in Binance.

I am sorry but maybe i am missing the point here. How was this successful? It was an illegal ICO from the start so i wouldn't call that a success. Funny thing is that there are others targeted from illegal sale of securities as well, people just don't know it yet until info on that is public. Personally i am amazed that they didn't do research on this before. Or maybe their legal team is just really bad.

Successful in a manner that they were able to raise a huge amount during the ICO, and successful that they get listed in Binance and had some great volume during their stay. No one knows it's an illegal ICO until the SEC goes after them.

AFAIK, the promoters of this that includes those celebrities have already been charged for promoting and accepting this scam project. And this has been long time delisted already in Binance since 2018.
https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/360002428872

They just got penalized though, so this project really has a big capital to start as they were able to hire a celebrity to promote the project, unfortunately they lack knowledge on the technicalites.

[TheUltraElite]

I remember the days of Centra tech pretty well and the number of celebrities involved in it. Their bounty was going on pretty well too - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2057569.0

Take a look at these from 2018:
Two Celebrities Charged With Unlawfully Touting Coin Offerings

and the court preceeding https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2018/33-10578.pdf

Additionally, forum user @yogg was being forced to giving positive trust to the account promoting the Centra ANN on this forum.
Read more here - [CENTRA] Trust abuser offers to buy positive feedback for ICO token dev profile

Pretty nasty how promoting a ICO could end up with problems that can tarnish the reputation of established celebs. In most cases the celebs themselves are pretty ignorant of it and only paid and told what they need to know. It is a paid up hush hush thing and that is why one must never use the names of celebs as a positive point when evaluating projects, rather use it as a negative point.

With time some more similar scams may get unearthed. Shows how shady this sector can be at times when you get your hands dirty with altcoins.

[paxmao]

I hope this serves as an example, but I doubt it. Most of the ICO are in fact frauds or they are very close to being so as they overpromise to the point of the impossible and deliver to the point of just plain ridicule. Anyone who has bothered to read a disclaimer, not just in crypto, but in any financial product knows that everything that a WP or a prospectus says is just "forward looking statements", which means that is nearly as good as nothing in legal terms.

[kryptqnick]

There were fake documents and non-existent team members, tens of millions of lost dollars. It's a big crime and not a big prison sentence, so it's probably fair, all things considered. What I also like about this news is that the seized funds will allegedly be used to return investments to victims. Criminals are not good for the reputation of the market, so I believe it's good news when scammers are sentenced. I've never heard of this ICO, to be honest, but there were so many more that caused devastating losses to many people. Hopefully, this is only the beginning.

[DapanasFruit]

Reading the articles there's fraud and scamming on their projects and it's just right that the developers are convicted, we have so many scammers in Cryptocurrency and this is a piece of welcome news, even if your project got traded in Binance if there are frauds in handling your projects you should be charged and convicted, this is a part of investing in Cryptocurrency that is so ugly, you can't fully trust a project even if it traded in a big charge.

I guess we have to face the reality that the cryptocurrency industry has been an open one and anybody including scammers and fraudsters can come in anytime, promote a project, make a killing in the process and then just run away...but in this case of Centra Tech good that eventually the people behind the scam project got arrested, prosecuted and maybe now languishing in jail waiting for the time to be released after 8 years. In case my memory serves me right, I even joined the promotion of this project but eventually got nothing...it is karma that got into them already.

[hugeblack]

It will be difficult to recover the money confiscated by the government according to a judicial authority, but if you are a citizen of that country and you can prove that you purchased these currencies legally, the court may decide to return the money to you that you paid on the date of the payment.
In general, this case is extremely rare, so do not try to buy large quantities of alternative currencies that have been newly listed or those that may be fraudulent (there are a lot of indications for this)

[Russlenat]

It will be difficult to recover the money confiscated by the government according to a judicial authority, but if you are a citizen of that country and you can prove that you purchased these currencies legally, the court may decide to return the money to you that you paid on the date of the payment.
In general, this case is extremely rare, so do not try to buy large quantities of alternative currencies that have been newly listed or those that may be fraudulent (there are a lot of indications for this)

No chance for me as I'm in the Philippines, I bought in exchange particularly Binance, so I cannot go after the team anymore as Binance have clean themselves by giving the warning to withdraw the tokens we owned as they will delist centra. This is a learning experience for everyone since it's almost impossible to go after these people, we just have to learn how to diversify our investments.

[TheUltraElite]

This is a learning experience for everyone since it's almost impossible to go after these people, we just have to learn how to diversify our investments.

Or better yet, dont invest in any altcoins at all. Follow a zero altcoin policy when investing and you should be good. I cannot see any bitcoin maximalist falling prey of such scams/disguised scams unless they waste their coins for nothing.

As a learning experience it costs you money and leaves you with a lot of bad memories and frustration which is a bad thing but you have to cope with it. I can only imagine how dreadful such a situation would be to someone new to crypto. First coin they invest in because they are fan of MMA and that coin turns out to be a scam. Maybe the fans of Floyd would have invested in it and they got ripped off nicely.

Hopefully in future with regulation, such scams will become more legally approachable.

[suryogandul]

this can be a reference for investors, bounty participants or anyone else to be able to use legal channels against the CEO of a deceptive project. we can see if there are still many scam projects like centra tech. This is a strength for investors to be confident that they can report legal cases to CEOs who commit fraud. this is very interesting news

[Russlenat]

This is a learning experience for everyone since it's almost impossible to go after these people, we just have to learn how to diversify our investments.

Or better yet, dont invest in any altcoins at all. Follow a zero altcoin policy when investing and you should be good. I cannot see any bitcoin maximalist falling prey of such scams/disguised scams unless they waste their coins for nothing.

As a learning experience it costs you money and leaves you with a lot of bad memories and frustration which is a bad thing but you have to cope with it. I can only imagine how dreadful such a situation would be to someone new to crypto. First coin they invest in because they are fan of MMA and that coin turns out to be a scam. Maybe the fans of Floyd would have invested in it and they got ripped off nicely.

I don't think that's a smart idea, that's playing too safe, investing in altcoins is still good as long as you make your research and you know how to diversify your funds. As what I'm seeing in the market now, there are some altcoins that are successful and if I will not ride with that, I will miss the opportunity, I'm okay with losing some as long as in the end, I'll be profitable.

Hopefully in future with regulation, such scams will become more legally approachable.

We can expect this to be realize as crypto is getting more popular.

[Dave1]

It will be difficult to recover the money confiscated by the government according to a judicial authority, but if you are a citizen of that country and you can prove that you purchased these currencies legally, the court may decide to return the money to you that you paid on the date of the payment.
In general, this case is extremely rare, so do not try to buy large quantities of alternative currencies that have been newly listed or those that may be fraudulent (there are a lot of indications for this)

No chance for me as I'm in the Philippines, I bought in exchange particularly Binance, so I cannot go after the team anymore as Binance have clean themselves by giving the warning to withdraw the tokens we owned as they will delist centra. This is a learning experience for everyone since it's almost impossible to go after these people, we just have to learn how to diversify our investments.

Yeah, I guess everything has crumbled on them, I mean the people behind really knows that they are running a scam but continue to proceed and even get some celebrities to promote it giving them more credibility. And it's on the time that everyone is on the hype of every project that is coming out, so every individual will invest even without DYOR or even the logic when people around are giving warnings about this scam projects. So it's good that justice prevailed. I'm not a holding of this coin because I stay away from it.

[Alf_m.h]

On March 4, 2021, Sohrab Sharma, known as Sam Sharma, was sentenced by Manhattan Federal Court to 8 years’ imprisonment, plus three years’ probation. Moreover, he must pay a $20,000 fine while authorities have seized approximately $36 million from his assets as fraud proceeds.

source
https://www.boccadutri.com/centra-tech-founders-sentenced/?utm_source=Mondaq&utm_medium=syndication&utm_campaign=LinkedIn-integration

If you still hold Centra now,  I don't know if you can still that asset.
This was a successful project in the past as they raised a good amount and even listed it in Binance.

Anyone here still holding the coin and hopeful they'll monetize it?

it will be difficult for CTR because they are involved with the CEO's case, people will sell it who hold it maybe they don't know about it or they feel they are still at a loss. I have sold it myself.

[mksundip]

He was the custodian of the coin of this project, he managed to leave it before he went out with the law. There were a lot of points, the main thing was that the creator of the project, instead of hiring people and developing the project, bought himself a lambargini and several houses and apartments in the United States of America.

This can be used as a lesson for the future.  should be careful if you want to join any project.  because the project does not provide a guarantee of certainty regarding our assets, the most important thing is to analyze before joining any project and don't let us get caught up in projects like centra tech.  The CEO purely enriches himself and doesn't prioritize investors or members joining this is very bad for a project like centra

[sikke]

Completely deserved.

I remember that Centra was one of the projects that seriously jeopardised the legitimacy of the whole crypto industry a while back due to its high profile endorsements. Just goes to show that you shouldn't trust blindly in these people.

Hopefully this will act as a deterrent for anyone who wishes to attempt fraud in the cryptospace - the consequences will catch up to you.