GET-RICH-QUICK schemes are nothing new to US audiences, who are captivated by the rise and fall of ordinary, everyday citizens trying to make their versions of the American Dream come true.
Ray Trapani was one such individual, whose involvement in a massive cryptocurrency scheme is the subject of an upcoming Netflix true-crime documentary, Bitconned.
Who is Ray Trapani?
Little is known about Ray Trapani’s background, but as the star of the upcoming Netflix documentary, Bitconned, audiences are sure to get a closer look at one of the faces behind a cryptocurrency con.
According to his LinkedIn, before he co-founded Centra Tech, Ray Trapani was the CEO of Miami Exotics, a luxury car rental dealership.
He was also a General Foreman at Safeway Atlantic from January 2011 to October 2014.
The “businessman,” now in his early 30s, resides in Florida.
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Back in the mid-2010s, Trapani claimed he wanted to get rich and live a lavish lifestyle.
In order to do that, he tells Netflix that he knew he had to “finesse the system,” in some way, and decided to take advantage of the Bitcoin boom.
Just a few years later, it all came crashing down, when in April 2018, Trapani was arrested and charged with securities fraud and wire fraud offenses.
As reported by the Justice Department, Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami said: “As alleged, Raymond Trapani conspired with his co-defendants to lure investors with false claims about their product and about relationships they had with credible financial institutions.”
“While investing in virtual currencies is legal, lying to deceive investors is not,” he added.
According to Inner City Press, Trapani was formally charged on four counts, including:
- One count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, which carries a maximum potential sentence of five years in prison
- One count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in prison
- One count of securities fraud, which carries a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in prison; and
- One count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in prison.
Trapani pled guilty to the charges.
He was convicted on each count but didn’t have to serve additional prison time due to a credit for time already served.
Trapani was, however, sentenced to three years of supervised release, “to run concurrently on all counts.”
He was also ordered to pay nearly $3 million in fines.
Trapani reportedly spoke candidly about his involvement in the cryptocurrency con in Bitconned, offering viewers an inside look at what went on behind the scenes in the Centra Tech scam.
What was Centra Tech?
According to its LinkedIn page, Centra Tech was a software development company founded in 2016.
The cryptocurrency and commerce organization was based in Miami Beach, Florida.
The organization claimed that it “developed platforms that connect world commerce and cryptocurrencies.”
One such development was the Centra Card, which operated much like any other debit card, allowing “cardholders to spend their cryptocurrencies in all fiat currency transactions.”
The company claimed that its Currency Conversion Engine (CCE) Module would “enable customers to convert their blockchain assets to market value fiat to obtain near-perfect exchange rates.”
This would, in turn, create “a true bridge to the world and cryptocurrencies.”
Centra Tech was founded by Sohrab “Sam” Sharma, Robert Joseph Farkas, and Raymond Trapani.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, the trio falsely claimed that their start-up “had developed fully functional, state-of-the-art cryptocurrency financial products.”
Sharma and Trapani had previously met while working for Miami Exotics.
As reported by Boccadutri, the company’s investors were essentially duped into purchasing “unregistered stocks in the form of digital tokens.”
According to the Department of Justice, the company’s alleged partnerships with Bancorp, Visa, and Mastercard also made them appear more legitimate, as they seemed “authorized” to issue Centra Cards to consumers “with the approval of Visa or Mastercard.”
A 2021 investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation found that Centra never had those cushy partnerships, nor were they licensed to operate in the United States.
The investigation also uncovered the truth behind Centra Tech’s executive team and CEO, Michael Edwards, a so-called Harvard alum with over 20+ years of experience in the banking world.
Neither Edwards nor the executive team ever existed – their stories, backgrounds, and skillsets were entirely fictitious creations developed by the start-up’s three founding members, as stated in a Justice.gov press release.
The former blockchain project, which dealt with popular cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple, among others, is now defunct.
The start-up’s website is no longer accessible, and in early 2021, the United States Marshals Service “sold the seized Ether units for approximately $33.4 million” to reimburse victims of the Centra Tech fraud.
Where is Ray Trapani now?
Ray Trapani is set to star in Bitconned, directed by Bryan Storkel, which will debut on the streaming platform Netflix on January 1, 2024.
Storkel is best known for directing the 2011 documentary Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians, and for producing 2018’s The Legend of Cocaine Island, another Netflix original documentary.
According to Netflix, the true crime documentary is about “three individuals [who] exploit the freewheeling cryptocurrency market to scam millions from investors and bankroll [their] lavish lifestyles.”
In the documentary, Ray himself “guides viewers through the ups and downs of his dramatic journey, alongside his family, former friends, and the journalist who exposed Centra Tech as the first high-profile fraud case of the crypto era.”
Centra Tech’s other two co-founders were also charged for their involvement in the cryptocurrency scheme.
In December 2020, Robert Joseph Farkas was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for his part in the cryptocurrency scam.
He was also sentenced to three years of supervised release, fined nearly $350,000, and ordered to return a Rolex watch he purchased with the money earned from the scam.
As reported by Coin Desk, on March 5, 2021, Sam Sharma was sentenced to eight years in jail for “conducting an illegal initial coin offering (ICO) that fleeced investors of $25 million.”
Like Farkas, Sharma was also sentenced to three years of supervised release, fined $20,000, and “ordered to forfeit $36,099,960.”
