Gate News message, April 17 — Robert Dunlap, 55, of Houston, Texas, was sentenced to 23 years in federal prison for orchestrating a $20 million cryptocurrency fraud through Meta-1 Coin Trust from 2018 to 2023. U.S. District Judge LaShonda A. Hunt of the Northern District of Illinois convicted Dunlap on mail fraud charges and ordered him to pay restitution to victims, many of whom lost retirement funds and life savings.

Dunlap falsely claimed the Meta-1 Coin token was backed by $1 billion in fine art, including works attributed to Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, and Salvador Dalí, plus $44 billion in gold reserves—totaling approximately $45 billion in claimed assets. Prosecutors said none of this backing existed. Dunlap used fabricated audits, certifications, and other forged documents to make the assets appear real and attract nearly 1,000 investors.

The scheme collected just over $20 million from victims despite the false $45 billion asset claims. The 23-year sentence ranks among the harshest imposed in a U.S. cryptocurrency fraud case, reflecting the severity of the scheme that combined cryptocurrency appeal with false references to high-value art and gold to persuade investors of legitimacy.

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