A Florida man pleads guilty after defrauding 10,000 people of more than $55 million

miami- A man based in Palm City, on Florida’s east coast, pleaded guilty Thursday to masterminding a criminal online investment scheme that defrauded more than $55 million from more than 10,000 people, the US Department of Justice reported.

Michael Glaspie, 72, presented investment opportunities under the CoinDeal name and generated extremely high returns on the basis that several technology companies operating under the “ViRSE” banner would be bought by a consortium.

To lure investors into CoinDeal, Glaspie “falsely promised that if CoinDeal’s benefits were not realized, he would repay them” with 7% annual interest for three years, according to court documents.

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But Glaspie knew she “had no way of getting such refunds.”

For his blatant and repeated lies that deceived more than 10,000 victims out of more than $55 million, the accused now faces a lengthy prison sentence. Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Bullitt Jr., Criminal Division, Department of Justice.

In order to support the “false promise of payment”, Glaspie misleadingly claimed that it had an exclusive and lucrative contract with telecommunications group AT&T to distribute phones funded by the US government.

She assured investors that the Better Business Bureau was distributing an app it had developed that would generate more than $400 million in revenue, when in reality it had no such contract or distribution agreement.

The “fraudulent internet investment scheme defrauded more than 10,000 victims” with the promise of high rates of return, said Luis Quesada, deputy director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigations Division. , some “money he later embezzled for personal use”.