Riccardo Spani, Monero’s chief maintenance officer, was arrested last month for fraud dating between 2009 and 2011 while living in South Africa.

His crimes have nothing to do with his XMR work on the Monero network.

The charges against the former lead developer of the “Monero” project:

Court documents indicate that Spani’s crime is related to his time as director of information technology at Cape Cookies, a company based in Cape Town, South Africa, where he worked from October 1, 2009 until June 8, 2011, after which his employment was terminated by agreement. mutual.

The indictment stated the following:

As an employee of Cape Cookies, Spani intercepts invoices from another company, Ensync, for IT goods and services supplied by Cape Cookies.

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Spani intentionally used false information to manufacture similar invoices allegedly from Ensync, relying on details including that company’s value-added tax (VAT) number and bank account information.

That is, Spani inflates the prices of goods and/or services.

The invoices allegedly contained a bank account that was opened and controlled by Spani rather than an account connected to Ensync.

Apparently, Spani had also issued fraudulent invoices from three other “fictitious entities” related to IT products.

Inadvertently, Cape Cookies continued to pay these bills while in fact they were paying Spani’s own accounts.

arrest:

An arrest warrant for Spani was issued on July 20 on behalf of the South African government, with the aim of extraditing him to trial on fraud charges.

He was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, on the same day during a scheduled gas station while on a private jet en route to Mexico.

A hearing will be held on August 5 to determine the fate of this former Monero developer.

The prison sentence can be up to 20 years if convicted of the above-mentioned crimes.

Spani started mining bitcoin in 2011, but soon turned to building mining tools for others which he described as a fun adventure.

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He later became the lead developer of Monero after a controversial event early in the cryptocurrency’s life.

Monero is now one of the world’s leading cryptocurrencies, offering unique transaction privacy compared to other altcoins.

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