United States authorities have accused Edward Zimbardi, 59, of orchestrating a $165 million cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, adding his name to a list of several high-profile crypto scam cases this year. According to the Office of the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Zimbardi was charged in federal court in Atlanta after being extradited from Fiji on August 14, 2026.

A guaranteed 25% a month that never existed

According to prosecutors, Zimbardi developed and promoted The Crypto Program from June 2022 to August 2023, promising investors an assured return of 25% per month on advertising packages. Compounded, that guarantee implies a return of well over 1,000% a year — the kind of assured, outsized gain that US securities regulators have long identified as a classic warning sign of Ponzi-style fraud. Instead, the money was transferred to wallets controlled by Zimbardi, the indictment claims. In total, thousands of people invested more than $165 million.

None of the money went into advertising, prosecutors allege. Zimbardi is accused of losing more than $34 million on speculative foreign-currency bets that he placed, and of then using money from new investors to pay back earlier ones. At least $10 million allegedly went to personal expenses, including his son’s house and other luxury goods. When the operation failed in August 2023, investors were left without the possibility of recovering any of their investments.

A warning had already been issued. On June 28, 2023, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation issued a desist-and-refrain order against The Crypto Program and Zimbardi, accusing them of violations of securities laws as well as gross misrepresentation or omission of essential details. The order was published on the regulator’s website, but it arrived only weeks before the collapse, while The Crypto Program was still operating. The episode highlights one of the most stubborn challenges of enforcement in the crypto sector: regulators are able to warn against a cryptocurrency scam while the money is still flowing, but investors benefit from the warning only if they notice it in time. The case also spans two layers of US enforcement — a state regulator’s civil order in 2023, and federal criminal charges three years later.

Fiji, a canceled wedding, and a deportation flight

Zimbardi’s route to a US courtroom ran through the South Pacific. By July 2025, aware that the FBI was investigating him, he had settled in Fiji, prosecutors say. In May 2026, he skipped his son’s wedding in Virginia, correctly guessing that federal agents would be waiting there to arrest him.

“When his scam imploded, he allegedly tried to evade federal prosecution by fleeing to the other side of the world,” U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said.

Fijian officials, working together with the FBI and the US State Department, eventually returned him to the United States — three years after The Crypto Program failed in August 2023, a measure of how long such cross-border pursuits can run. A grand jury indicted him on July 8 on 12 counts of wire fraud, 12 counts of money laundering, and one count of money-laundering conspiracy. Under federal law, each of those counts carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years upon conviction. He is presumed innocent.

Why one Georgia case reflects a global problem

In its 2025 Internet Crime Report, published in April 2026, the FBI put total losses from cyber-enabled crimes at nearly $21 billion. Among the categories of theft reported, cryptocurrency crimes accounted for the largest sum of losses, at $11 billion. Georgia, where the charges were filed, is one of the ten US states hit hardest by cryptocurrency fraud, with losses estimated at more than $264.5 million.

The problem is becoming increasingly global. According to Chainalysis, the average payment made to scam addresses increased by 253% in 2025 to $2,764, and inflows from impersonation scams grew by more than 1,400%.

According to TRM Labs, illegal crypto transactions surged by almost 145% to $158 billion in 2025. The figure, while meaningful, represented only around 1.2% of total transactions. That distinction — crime not being the main source of crypto activity — matters, but the amounts flowing through illicit networks still require a global response.

INTERPOL’s Global Financial Fraud Threat Assessment, dated March 16, warns that scam syndicates are becoming more widespread as fraud networks continue to share resources, technology, and money-laundering know-how. The number of INTERPOL Notices and Diffusions related to fraud has increased by 54% since 2024.

The FATF reported a similar weakness on July 16, cautioning that criminal organizations are taking advantage of inconsistent regulation of cryptocurrencies and inconsistent enforcement to transfer billions of dollars in illegal funds. Although 83% of responding jurisdictions have passed Travel Rule legislation, numerous countries are unable to apply the legislation successfully.

The Zimbardi case demonstrates these gaps in action. A scheme promoted in one location can move cryptocurrency from country to country while the perpetrators of the crime and those involved in money laundering sit in a different jurisdiction. As a result, tracing the money and ensuring it is intercepted before it vanishes increasingly relies on cooperation among authorities, investigators, and foreign governments.