Instagram influencer Jay Mazini sentenced to seven years in prison for crypto fraud

Jay MaziniJay Mazini (attribution)
Jay Mazini, an influencer who often boasted of his wealth on Instagram by doing cash giveaways to random strangers, has been sentenced to seven years in prison after running "overlapping fraud schemes" that scammed victims out of at least $8 million. One of them involved a multi-million dollar cryptocurrency scam in which he would promise to pay higher prices for crypto, and would convince those who were interested to transfer their funds to him by providing doctored images of wire transfer confirmations to suggest that he'd fulfilled his end of the deal.

Mazini also ran a scam targeting the Muslim community in New York, via a company called Halal Capital. In reality, this was a Ponzi scheme, and payouts to his investors were funded in part by the crypto scam he was also running.

Mazini was arrested in March 2021 on kidnapping charges, after he kidnapped and beat someone who might have witnessed his frauds. He was sentenced to five years in prison for that charge, to which he pled guilty. His new fraud sentence will be served concurrently with the kidnapping sentence.

In addition to seven years in prison, Mazini has been ordered to forfeit $10 million. Restitution has not yet been determined.