A U.S. district judge has sentenced a man to three years in prison in a fraudulent cryptocurrency mining scheme. The defendant “misappropriated his victims’ money and failed to provide them with the miners and miner-hosting services they had purchased from him,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The DOJ explained that from at least 2019 until his arrest in April 2022, Stojanovich “allegedly defrauded more than a dozen victims of more than $2 million through fraudulent misrepresentations that he would provide his customers with specialized cryptocurrency-mining computers (‘miners’) and miner-hosting services that would provide the victims with a lucrative stream of ‘hash power’ convertible into cryptocurrency.”

Moreover, Stojanovich allegedly “misappropriated his customers’ funds and spent the funds on unrelated and personal expenditures, including chartered air flights, hotel rooms, limousines, and private parties,” the Department of Justice detailed. Noting that Stojanovich was sentenced on Thursday before U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, the DOJ concluded:In addition to his prison sentence, Stojanovich … was sentenced today to three years of supervised release, forfeiture of $2,158,927, and restitution to his victims in the amount of $2,108,927.