An Atlanta film producer has recently pleaded guilty to money laundering and wire fraud. Ryan Felton had been charged for using his platform to promote cryptocurrency investment schemes that had cost unsuspecting investors over $2.5 Million.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed that Ryan had promoted and Initial Coin Offering (ICO) for a video streaming platform called FLiK back in 2017. The DOJ’s statement stated that Felton claimed that the streaming platform had the potential to surpass Netflix. To further convince investors to purchase FLiK coins, the producer claimed that the platform was owned by a popular Atlanta actor and rapper who had been fined by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) back in 2020.

Ryan also lied to investors that the U.S. Military had agreed a deal to market FLiK and that the platform had already finalized license deals with some major studios. The Department of Justice confirmed that those were all fibs and none of his assertions were true. Ryan also told his investors that he was going to use all the proceeds from the initial coin offering to officially launch the FLiK platform as he was already working on the platform.

Contrary to his words, immediately the initial coin offering was over, he dumped over 40 million FLiK coins which he had held. This caused the coin value to plummet and left many of the investors with worthless assets. The DOJ also pointed out that he diverted the proceeds worth a little over $2.4 Million to his personal bank account and used it to fund a lifestyle of extravagance which included costly cars, expensive jewelery and a $1.5 Million home.

According to the DOJ, this is not the first time he has been involved in this type of crime. He did something similar back in 2018 for a coin exchange called CoinSpark. He made several false claims to prospective investors which included claims that the investors would receive 25% of the firms profits in the form of dividends and that a professional accounting firm would be in charge of CoinSpark’s finance audits at the end of every quarter.

None of those claims were true and he went on to raise over $200,000 in the Initial Coin Offering. He went on to tell the investors that CoinSpark would no longer be able to pay the 25% dividends promised while offering to refund the total amount of their investments. However, he still ignored the investors’ requests for the refund and diverted all the funds to his personal account, lavishing them on his bourgeois lifestyle.

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