An Instagram influencer from New Jersey known as “Jay Mazini” was famous for his posts giving away money to needy people. All was going well until he started using his platform to advertise that he was buying Bitcoins premiums 5% over the market value.
His large social media following believed his offer, and unsuspecting Bitcoin sellers would agree to his payment terms. He would send doctored images of payments of the transactions. They would send their Bitcoins, waiting for the money that never came.
According to an official statement from the U.S. Department of Justice, Jay Mazini’s scam relied heavily on the trust he had earned from his following as an influencer.
As Mazini’s (real name Jebara Igbara) victim count increased, one man took to social media to expose Mazini’s scamming ways and Mazini set out to put a stop to him.
According to NJ.com, last month Mazini reached out to the man behind a smear campaign to “discuss issues of scams” over coffee. That confrontation turned into Igbara and two other unknown individuals “stripping the (man) naked and holding a machete to the (his) neck ordering him to remove negative social media postings about (Igbara) or a video of the encounter would be released to social media, while threatening to kill him,” the Bergen County criminal complaint alleges.
Now Igbara a.k.a. “Mazini” has been charged with aggravated assault, luring an adult, kidnapping, possession of a weapon, criminal coercion, endangering an injured victim, and making terroristic threats.
The 25-year-old is also facing both state and federal criminal charges after being accused of wire fraud in the Eastern District of New York for allegedly scamming at least four victims out of more than $2 million in Bitcoin and failing to pay them the cash he promised.
Discover more from Baller Alert
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
