A US court has accused Oregon and Illinois residents and related companies of embezzling $44 million through a fictitious scheme to invest in cryptocurrency funds. This has been reported CFTC.

Sam Ikkurti and Ravishankar Avadhanam, known as Shrinivas E Rao since 2017, have formed three companies since 2017 ostensibly to attract investment, according to the agency.

Up to 62% annual returns were promised to potential clients of Ikkurty Capital, Rose City Income Fund and Seneca Ventures. The attackers advertised the project, including YouTube videos. In fact, all three companies worked on the principle of a financial pyramid.

In total, they managed to attract at least $44 million from 170 people.

According to the CFTC, most of the funds that Ikkurti and Avadhanam received were distributed as profits among the participants in the pyramid. The defendants transferred another $18 million into their own accounts. With the help of an offshore organization, some of the funds allegedly ended up on an unnamed foreign cryptocurrency exchange.

An Illinois federal court froze the assets in question and appointed an interim trustee to return the funds to the victims.

The next hearing in the case will be held on May 25. The CFTC seeks to fine the defendants and permanently prohibit their parties from trading, registration and future violations of the Commodity Exchange Act.

Earlier, US authorities accused the CEO of Mining Capital Coin of fraud of $62 million.