According to CoinMeta, as reported by Decrypt, 59-year-old resident of Georgia, Edward Zimbardi, appeared in a U.S. federal court facing 12 charges of telecommunications fraud, 12 charges of money laundering, and one charge of conspiracy to launder money. On August 14th, Fiji, in coordination with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI: FBI) and the U.S. State Department, extradited Zimbardi back to the United States. The prosecution alleges that between June 2022 and August 2023, Zimbardi operated a scheme known as The Crypto Program that lured thousands of people to invest over $165 million by promising a fixed monthly return of 25% on advertising packages. The prosecution claims that Zimbardi used more than $34 million in these funds for high-risk foreign exchange transactions and paid earlier investors with money from new investors, with personal expenditures amounting to at least $10 million. The scheme collapsed in August 2023, and Zimbardi fled the country. It was not until July 2025, after learning about the investigation into FBI, that he settled in Fiji. FBI is appealing to relevant investors to provide information.