U.S. Federal Prosecutor Appeals to Increase Sentence of HashFlare Mining Fraud Case Mastermind

BlockBeats News, August 27th, according to Decrypt report, U.S. federal prosecutors have appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to seek an increase in the "time served" sentence for Estonian citizens Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin in the $577 million HashFlare cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme case, with the federal prosecutors calling it "unusually lenient."

The two had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy, defrauding 440,000 global victims between 2015 and 2019 through false mining contracts, presenting a fictitious "dashboard" of returns, and using the funds for luxury goods and to pay early withdrawers. Previously, the judge sentenced the two to three years of supervised release and a $25,000 fine each, rejecting the prosecutor's request for a 10-year prison term citing concerns over the treatment of foreign defendants in the U.S., including a possible "indefinite detention." Legal experts say the judge's reasoning based on "time served, immigration risk, and restitution concerns" is sufficient, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals generally respects the trial judge's discretion, making a upheld ruling likely, but the lenient sentence could weaken the deterrence of economic crimes. The case has seized $400 million for victim compensation and is referred to as the "largest fraud case in the Western District of Washington."