Federal jury in Chicago convicts man of orchestrating $14 million cryptocurrency fraud

Date: Nov. 20, 2025

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

CHICAGO — A federal jury in Chicago has convicted a Texas man of fraud for orchestrating a cryptocurrency scheme that bilked nearly 1,000 investors out of at least $14 million.

Robert Dunlap of Houston, Texas, was convicted of two counts of mail fraud on Monday after a week-long trial in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The conviction carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison. U.S. District Judge LaShonda A. Hunt set sentencing for Feb. 17, 2026.

From 2018 to 2023, Dunlap worked with others to market and sell a purported digital asset called “Meta-1 Coin” through a “Meta-1 Coin Trust.” Dunlap made numerous false and misleading statements to potential and actual investors, including claims that the Meta-1 Coin was backed by as much as $1 billion in art and $44 billion in gold. Dunlap falsely claimed that an accounting firm had audited the gold and certified its value. The purported art collection was alleged to have included works by Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Vincent Van Gogh, and other acclaimed artists. Dunlap used automated trading bots to cause the market price and trading volume of the Meta-1 Coin to be inflated on the “Meta Exchange,” which was a website created by Dunlap.

Dunlap created numerous legal, insurance, and other documents to conceal the fact that he did not possess the gold or art. His fraud scheme caused nearly 1,000 investors to lose at least $14 million.

The conviction was announced by Andrew S. Boutros, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Adam Jobes, Special Agent-in-Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in Chicago, and Douglas S. DePodesta, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI. Valuable assistance was provided by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paige Nutini and Jared Hasten.

IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.