Jose Angel Aman, who is accused of defrauding investors by making promises of a diamond-backed digital currency, will face seven years behind bars for his alleged crime. The man will also have to pay up to $23 million in victim restitution. According to a press release by the U.S. Department of Justice, he defrauded investors in Canada and the United States from 2014 to 2019, soliciting them to invest in diamond contracts.
Jose Angel promised high returns to investors.
Together with his partners, Jose Angel Aman allegedly lied to investors that he used their funds to buy rough diamonds, cut and resell them at a profit. He promised investors a “high return, no risk” business. The Department of Justice stated that those promises were false. The accused and his partners never had any diamonds. Instead, they used new investors’ funds to pay off the existing investors in a Ponzi scheme mode. At the end of the investment period, they would convince the investors to sign reinvestment contracts, purportedly to put their money into new and more lucrative investments.
Argyle Coin LLC claimed it was developing a diamond-backed token.
The accused set up Argyle Coin LLC, a company he claimed was developing a diamond-backed token. Just as with his previous sham venture, Aman marketed the new company as ‘high return, no risk.’ After soliciting funds from investors, he only used a small portion to develop the digital token. With the rest, he continued paying off existing investors to create the illusion of profitability. The DoJ had charged the Washington D.C citizen earlier this year with wire fraud. In 2019, a group of Venezuelans also filed a lawsuit against the 51-year-old and his co-conspirators, claiming they had defrauded them.
