Amir Bruno Elmaani, the founder of the now-defunct cryptocurrency scheme Oyster Protocol, has been sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion. Elmaani, also known as “Bruno Block,” admitted to secretly minting and selling Pearl tokens without paying income tax on the profits. This resulted in tax losses of over $5.5 million. Elmaani promoted the cryptocurrency Pearl as a way for investors to purchase data on the Oyster Protocol platform. However, he secretly minted new tokens and sold them for personal gain without informing anyone involved in the project. Despite earning millions of dollars, Elmaani filed a tax return claiming minimal income. The court found that he spent millions on yachts, a carbon-fiber composite company, home improvement stores, and two homes. Elmaani did not report or pay taxes on his cryptocurrency proceeds and used friends and family as nominees to transfer funds to his own accounts. In addition to his prison sentence, he was ordered to pay $5.5 million in restitution.

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Information	Details
Geography	North America
Countries	🇺🇸
Sentiment	negative
Relevance Score	1
People	Amir Elmaani
Companies	DoJ, District Attorney Damian Williams, Oyster Protocol, United States Attorney’s Office
Currencies	None
Securities	None