Crypto Conman Gets 5 Years in the Clink – $9.4M Gone Wrong

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If ol’ Travis Ford had a nickel for every dollar he swindled, he’d still be broke, but alas-he’s now serving five long years in the big house. Seems our crypto trader extraordinaire got caught with his hand in the cookie jar-a very, very big cookie jar filled with $9.4 million of other folks’ hard-earned coin. 🏦💰

  • Travis Ford, that fine upstanding “sophisticated” trader, got whistled into jail for half a decade over his crypto Ponzi escapade.
  • He’s gotta cough up a cool million in forfeiture and another $170,000 in what folks call restitution-probably to keep the judge from confiscating his hat.
  • This grand scheme was unveiled in January 2025, when Ford copped to wire fraud faster than a country boy can shoot a squirrel.

The Department of Justice (or as some call it, the folks with the big gavel) said Ford, a sprightly 36 years old, will spend 60 months behind bars, and he’s also on the hook for over a million bucks, plus a small mountain of restitution. All this because he led an investment scheme that duped 2,800 folks of their savings from January to August of 2023-more than a few lost their shirts, boots, and probably their patience.

Back in November, the DoJ announced that Ford’s guilty plea in January kicked off his visit to the slammer. Seems he thought he could convince folks he was a “highfalutin” trader, able to fetch returns way better than your garden-variety pig farmer. Instead, he dipped his hands into their pockets and made off with the loot, diverting it for his own pleasure-probably to buy himself a nice pair of fancy boots or a shiny car.

Travis Ford’s promises were more fake than a three-dollar bill

He and his cohorts lured folks in through their flashy website and social media gab, promising returns of 1-2% daily, which amounts to a staggering 547% a year-more money than most of us see in a lifetime. But none of that was real. Instead of riches, the investors got cleaned out, as Ford played Robin Hood the other way around-taking their money and putting it into his own pocket.

Meanwhile, across the ocean in China, another crook-the notorious “cryptoqueen” Zhimin Qian-was sentenced to 11 years after she stole over $6 billion in Bitcoin from more than 128,000 victims. She held all that stolen crypto like a dragon guarding its treasure, but the dragon got caught in the act.

Qian and Ford are just the latest in a long line of crypto bandits who’ve traded honesty for a cell-reminding us all that cryptocurrency might be shiny, but it’s no substitute for integrity. 🕵️‍♂️🚔

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2025-11-14 21:33