Two 23-year-old Southern California men have been indicted for allegedly defrauding investors out of more than $22 million in cryptocurrency , according to authorities.
Gabriel Hay of Beverly Hills and Gavin Mayo of Thousand Oaks are accused of collecting investments for nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, and digital asset projects with no intention of sticking around to see those efforts realized, prosecutors said.
The U.S. attorney’s office says that from May 2021 to May 2024, they and an unnamed co-conspirator collected $22.4 million from multiple “rug pull” schemes — in which a token or project creator collects investor funds, but then abandons the project while keeping the money…