MIAMI – Austin Michael Taylor, 41, the founder of CluCoin, a cryptocurrency token project in Miami, was sentenced to 27 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution and forfeit assets in the amount of $1.14 million. The sentence comes after the defendant pleaded guilty to wire fraud in August 2024.
According to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, Taylor, 41, of Sykesville, Maryland, was the founder of a cryptocurrency project CluCoin and owner of CLU LLC, a company incorporated and headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Fla., that handled CluCoin’s operations.
“Taylor leveraged his sizable social media following to generate interest in a digital token he called ‘CLU.’ Taylor generated interest in CLU’s initial coin offering (ICO), which is a capital raising event in which an entity offers investors a unique digital token in exchange for a more established cryptocurrency or fiat currency. Taylor created a “white paper” for CluCoin, which was meant to educate and entice investors to participate in the ICO, which promised to have a charitable focus. After raising investor funds, Taylor successfully launched CluCoin’s ICO on May 19, 2021. Taylor then shifted CluCoin’s focus to other projects he devised: the minting of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the development of a computer game and a metaverse platform.”
The US Attorney’s Office also stated that Taylor organized and paid for an event called “NFTCon: Into the Metaverse,” which took place in a hotel in Miami on April 4 and 5, 2022, to drive interest and investment in CLU, CluCoin and related projects. Shortly after the conference, in May 2022, Taylor gained the ability to make withdrawals from the cryptocurrency address he controlled into which a portion of the CLU investor funds automatically flowed. From May through December 2022, Taylor sent approximately $1.14 million in investor funds to his personal account at a virtual currency exchange and then used the funds at multiple online casinos, where he lost these investor funds to gambling.
U.S. Attorney Hayden P. O’Byrne for the Southern District of Florida and Acting Special Agent in Charge Justin E. Fleck of the FBI, Miami Field Office, announced the sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra.
FBI Miami and the Washington Field Offices investigated the case. Assistant U.S Attorney Manolo Reboso prosecuted the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Stone is handling asset forfeiture.
Identified victims were notified via NFT. If you invested in CLU, believe you are a victim, and/or received an NFT, please visit https://www.fbi.gov/CluCoinInvestors to provide relevant information to the FBI.
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