Overview
- U.S. District Judge LaShonda A. Hunt in Chicago sentenced Robert Dunlap to 23 years in federal prison and ordered restitution following his 2025 mail-fraud conviction.
- Prosecutors said Dunlap ran Meta-1 Coin Trust from 2018 to 2023 and falsely marketed Meta-1 Coin as backed by $44 billion in gold and $1 billion in art that did not exist.
- Dunlap used forged documents and a fake audit claim from an accounting firm to hide that he had neither the gold nor the artwork.
- More than 1,000 investors lost over $20 million, and it remains unclear how much restitution they will actually recover.
- The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago announced the sentence, with support from the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation and the SEC, highlighting coordinated enforcement against crypto fraud.