Rathnakishore Giri, a 31-year-old investment manager from New Albany, Ohio, was sentenced to nine years in federal prison on Monday for orchestrating a $10 million cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, with an additional three years of supervised release to follow. Giri marketed himself as an experienced cryptocurrency and Bitcoin derivatives trader, promising clients lucrative returns with no risk to their principal and guaranteeing that their original investment would be returned on demand. Prosecutors said the reality was a classic Ponzi structure where new investor funds were routed to earlier participants while Giri accumulated a record of failed trades and lost client capital behind the scenes. When investors attempted to withdraw their money, he provided fabricated explanations for the delays to keep the scheme running.

What made the case particularly egregious was that Giri continued soliciting new investors even after pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud in October 2024 and while awaiting sentencing, conduct he later admitted to as part of an amended plea agreement with the Department of Justice. Federal authorities had originally indicted him in November 2022 on five counts of wire fraud, and the additional fundraising activity during the pre-sentencing period factored into Monday's nine-year term. The sentence arrives as crypto-linked fraud in the United States continues to escalate, with Americans reporting $11.36 billion in cryptocurrency losses to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center in 2025, a 22% jump over the prior year. The Justice Department's Fraud Section prosecuted the case, with Acting Deputy Chief Lucy B. Jennings and Trial Attorney Tamara Livshiz leading the proceedings.