Edward Zimbardi, the mastermind behind the Ponzi scheme, has been deported back to the United States and faces multiple charges

Edward Zimbardi, a 59 year old resident of Georgia, appeared in federal court facing 12 charges of telecommunications fraud, 12 charges of money laundering, and 1 charge of money laundering conspiracy. Fiji deported Edward Zimbardi back to the United States on August 14th in coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US State Department. The prosecution accuses Edward Zimbardi of operating The Crypto Program from June 2022 to August 2023, using advertising packages with a fixed monthly return of 25% as bait to induce thousands of people to transfer over $165 million. The prosecutor claimed that Edward Zimbardi used over $34 million for high-risk foreign exchange trading and made payments to early investors with new investor funds, with personal expenses of at least $10 million. The project collapsed in August 2023, and Edward Zimbardi left the country and settled in Fiji after learning of the FBI investigation in July 2025. The FBI is calling on relevant investors to provide information. （Decrypt）