Co-founder of Monero cryptocurrency accused of fraud

The government of South Africa has filed a 378-count indictment against Monero co-founder Ricardo Spagna. He is charged with fraud in the amount of 1.5 million South African rands, forgery, and disclosure of information.

Spagni stole about 93.5 thousand dollars (the same amount in US currency) from his previous company Cape Cookies. The developer is suspected of intercepting invoices intended for the IT provider Ensync and falsifying new ones.

Spagni created invoices purporting to be from Ensync by entering information about his company’s bank account and VAT number and sent them to Cape Cookies. In this way, he falsified invoices for at least three fictitious IT providers using fake contact information. The co-founder of the Monero cryptocurrency pleaded not guilty.

The South African authorities issued an arrest warrant for Spagni and asked US law enforcement to detain him for extradition. Last year, Spagni was already arrested on the basis of the South African warrant, but was released after his lawyers provided a number of pieces of evidence.