Houston Man Sentenced to 23 Years Over Fake Gold- and Art-Backed Crypto Scheme
A Texas man obtained a 23-year federal jail sentence for operating a crypto rip-off. The fraud drained practically 1,000 buyers of greater than $20 million via a sham asset-backed token.
Robert Dunlap, 55, of Houston, bought a digital asset referred to as Meta-1 Coin from 2018 to 2023. Federal prosecutors within the Northern District of Illinois led the case.
How the Meta-1 Coin Crypto Scam labored
According to the press launch, Dunlap constructed his pitch around fabricated reserves. He instructed buyers that Meta-1 Coin was backed by up to $1 billion in artwork. The assortment supposedly included works attributed to Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Vincent Van Gogh, and others.
He additionally claimed roughly $44 billion in gold stood behind the token. An accounting agency had audited and licensed the bullion, Dunlap falsely instructed patrons.
“Defendant lied to buyers for years telling them that he had created a secure funding for them. Over the years, defendant was unrepentant and his lies turned greater. Would-be criminals planning to have interaction in related conduct want to know that such actions will likely be met with a critical repercussion that features lack of one’s liberty for an prolonged time period,” Assistant US Attorneys Jared Hasten and Paige Nutini argued within the authorities’s sentencing memorandum.
A federal jury convicted Dunlap on two counts of mail fraud in November 2025. US District Judge LaShonda A. Hunt handed down the 23-year sentence this week. She additionally ordered restitution for fraud victims, lots of whom reported losing their life savings.
US Attorney Andrew S. Boutros and particular brokers from the FBI’s Chicago Field Office and IRS Criminal (*23*) (IRS-CI) introduced the sentence. They obtained help from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
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