The leader of a Miami group accused of running a crypto scam that defrauded U.S. banks of $4 million was handed a 63-month prison sentence by a New York district judge on Wednesday.

Esteban Cabrera Da Corte in April pleaded guilty to participating in the 2020 scheme to steal millions of dollars worth of crypto and trick U.S. banks into refunding them. The 27-year-old Miami resident was also ordered to pay restitution of nearly $3.6 million and forfeiture of $1.2 million.

Da Corte was one of three people arrested in August 2022 for the crime, which the prosecutors said "resulted in U.S. banks processing more than $4 million in fraudulent reversals and [a cryptocurrency exchange] losing more than $3.5 million worth of cryptocurrency."

The arrests made headlines as they followed the high-profile collapse of crypto enterprise Terra, after which U.S. lawmakers called for a crackdown on bad actors in the space.

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Sandali Handagama

Sandali Handagama is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor for policy and regulations, EMEA. She is an alumna of Columbia University's graduate school of journalism and has contributed to a variety of publications including The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Nation and Popular Science. Sandali doesn't own any crypto and she tweets as @iamsandali