US prosecutors appeal 'too lenient' sentence in HashFlare cryptocurrency mining scam

PANews reported on August 27th that, according to Decrypt, U.S. federal prosecutors have filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, requesting the overturning of the convictions of Estonian defendants Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin. The two pleaded guilty to operating the $577 million cryptocurrency mining Ponzi scheme HashFlare, but received only three years of supervised release and a $25,000 fine each, far less than the 10-year prison sentence sought by prosecutors.

Legal experts stated that while the sentence was "unusually lenient," the Ninth Circuit generally defers to the discretion of local judges unless the sentence is manifestly unreasonable. Judge Robert S. Lasnik considered factors such as the defendant's prison sentence already served, the risk of extradition, and victim restitution in his sentencing. He also noted that if the treaty transfer had not been approved, the defendant could have faced a harsher prison sentence and indefinite detention. HashFlare defrauded 440,000 victims worldwide between 2015 and 2019, and the defendant has already forfeited $400 million in assets for restitution. Prosecutors believe the sentence is "so lenient in the face of such large-scale fraud that it raises serious concerns about its consistency and deterrent effect."