Las Vegas Man Faces 280-Year Max Over $24M Crypto Ponzi Scheme

A federal jury has convicted Las Vegas businessman Brent Kovar on 15 counts of wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering tied to a $24 million crypto scheme, the US Justice Department said. Prosecutors say Kovar drew money from at least 400 investors while running his company, Profit Connect, from late 2017 to July 2021. He now faces a combined statutory maximum of 280 years in prison, with a federal judge deciding his actual sentence at a hearing set for November 30.

Two independent outlets, Cointelegraph and The Block, reported the DOJ’s announcement, both citing the same figures: $24 million taken, at least 400 investors affected, and a nine-day trial that ended in conviction. That overlap is what moves this from a single-source claim to a confirmed underlying event.

What Profit Connect Promised, and What Prosecutors Found

Kovar told investors that Profit Connect used artificial intelligence software running on a supercomputer to mine crypto and verify transactions. He promised fixed annual returns of 15% to 30%, backed by a 100% money-back guarantee, and claimed the company held hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto reserves.

None of that held up in court. Prosecutors said Profit Connect was not profitable, had no such reserves, and had no legitimate way to deliver the returns or the guarantee it advertised. Instead, according to the DOJ, Kovar used incoming investor cash to run the company, buy gifts for employees, purchase a house, and pay off earlier investors while presenting those payments as proceeds from crypto activity.

The Count Sheet Behind the 280-Year Figure

The jury convicted Kovar on 11 counts of wire fraud, two counts of mail fraud and two counts of money laundering. Each count carries its own statutory ceiling, and stacked together those ceilings add up to the 280-year maximum cited by the DOJ. That number is not a sentencing forecast. It is the outer legal limit, and judges routinely impose far less once federal sentencing guidelines, cooperation and criminal history come into play.

Sentencing is scheduled for November 30. Until then, the case sits at conviction, not final punishment, a distinction both source reports preserved by citing the statutory maximum separately from the actual sentence still to be handed down.

A Familiar Playbook Dressed in AI Language

The mechanics described by prosecutors track a standard Ponzi structure: new investor deposits fund payouts to earlier investors, dressed up with a technical veneer, in this case an “AI supercomputer” narrative rather than a trading algorithm. The fixed 15%-to-30% return range and the money-back guarantee are the kind of promises that outpace anything a legitimate crypto mining or verification business can sustain over years.

For readers tracking crypto fraud cases, the pattern is worth flagging separately from the headline dollar figure. A guaranteed fixed return paired with a refund promise is not a feature of real market exposure; it is a structural red flag regulators and prosecutors have used to build fraud cases for over a decade, crypto-wrapped or not.

Read more: OFAC Sanctions UAE Broker Over $100M in Crypto-Linked Iran Oil Payments

Both source reports agree on the core figures: $24 million, 400-plus investors, 15 total counts, and the November 30 sentencing date. Neither report disclosed additional detail on how investors were recruited or whether restitution has been addressed, leaving those questions open pending the sentencing hearing.

Sources

• cointelegraph.com
• theblock.co