BOSTON — A Haverhill man has been charged in federal court in Boston with wire fraud for fraudulently obtaining approximately $350,000 from investors in a cryptocurrency scheme, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced today.
Luciano Schipelliti, 28, was charged with one count of wire fraud and has agreed to plead guilty before Senior U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor on a date to be scheduled.
According to the charging documents, Schipelliti established the “Superstars Fund” in the fall of 2018 and raised approximately $275,000 to invest in cryptocurrency. By 2019, prosecutors allege he had lost all of the funds through a series of bad investments but did not inform investors. Instead, beginning in approximately November 2020, Schipelliti sent monthly newsletters to investors falsely stating that the Superstar Fund continued to grow in value.
Based on those misrepresentations, prosecutors allege that in or around February 2021, Schipelliti launched a new fund, the “TTM Fund,” raising approximately $350,000 to invest in cryptocurrency. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts says the totality of those funds were lost by September 2021, primarily through cryptocurrency investments, with some funds allegedly used in ways inconsistent with the TTM Fund’s operating agreement.
The charge of wire fraud carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.
U.S. Attorney Leah Foley and Ted Docks, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Division, announced the charge.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Saltzman of the Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit is prosecuting the case.
