Jury convicts Las Vegas businessman in $24M cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme

A federal jury on Monday convicted a Las Vegas businessman on charges that he used a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme to fraudulently obtain $24 million. The U.S. Attorney's Office for Nevada said that after a nine-day trial, Brent Kovar was found guilty on 11 counts of wire fraud, two counts of mail fraud and two counts of money laundering. Prosecutors said Kovar owned a Las Vegas-based company called Profit Connect from 2017 to 2021. The company purportedly used artificial intelligence software on a supercomputer to mine cryptocurrency and verify other transactions. Kovar falsely claimed the company was profitable and would pay investors a fixed rate of return between 15% and 30%, prosecutors alleged. He also fals