Chicago Jury Convicts Robert Dunlap in $14 Million ‘Meta‑1 Coin’ Fraud

Overview

• A federal jury found Dunlap guilty on two counts of mail fraud after a week-long trial in the Northern District of Illinois.
• Prosecutors said nearly 1,000 investors lost at least $14 million through the Meta-1 Coin offering.
• From 2018 to 2023 he marketed the token through a trust while falsely claiming backing by $1 billion in art and $44 billion in gold and touting a non-existent audit.
• Investigators said he inflated price and trading volume using automated bots on a self-run platform called the Meta Exchange.
• The conviction was announced by the U.S. Attorney in Chicago with FBI and IRS-CI leaders, with assistance from the SEC and the Eastern District of Virginia, and the case was tried by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paige Nutini and Jared Hasten.