Share this article
Founders of ICO Endorsed By Floyd Mayweather Indicted for Fraud
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York has announced that the co-founders of a Floyd Mayweather-backed ICO have been indicted.
By Nikhilesh De
Updated Sep 13, 2021, 7:57 a.m. Published May 15, 2018, 8:00 a.m.
In this article
The three co-founders of cryptocurrency firm Centra Tech have all been indicted by a grand jury, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced Monday.
Raymond Trapani, Sohrab Sharma and Robert Farkas have all been accused of planning to defraud investors through their company's token sale. U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami further announced that authorities had recovered more than $60 million in funds from the co-founders.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
All three are being charged with counts of conspiracy and the commission of securities and wire fraud, according to a release.
Centra reportedly offered "cryptocurrency-related financial products," and its founders allegedly created "a scheme to induce victims to invest millions of dollars' worth of digital funds for the purpose of unregistered securities," according to the release.
However, the three also allegedly withheld important information or otherwise mislead investors, including claims about its ties to payments companies.
The company's token sale was endorsed by heavyweight boxer Floyd Mayweather, claimed to have developed partnerships with Visa and Mastercard to create financial products. The SEC says that these partnerships never existed.
The charges were first revealed earlier this year when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed charged Sharma and Farkas with fraud, as previously reported. The Department of Justice later produced criminal charges of its own against all three co-founders.
The three remain in custody pending further action by the courts.
Gavel image via Shutterstock
Más para ti
Lo que debes saber:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
U.S. bitcoin, ether ETFs see largest outflows since Nov. 20 as BTC declines
Monday once again emerges as a pressure point for bitcoin, aligning ETF outflows with recurring bitcoin lows.
What to know:
- U.S. spot bitcoin and ether ETFs recorded the largest net outflows since Nov. 20.
- Monday has been a consistent pressure point for bitcoin this year, with several major local lows occurring on that day, and Velo data showing Monday as the third-worst performing day over the past 12 months.
Top Stories
