Alleged crypto fraudster on the run after tampering ankle bracelet

A man doing home detention for his alleged involvement in a $180 million cryptocurrency fraud scheme is apparently on the run after he tampered with his ankle bracelet monitor, New York prosecutors said.

Horst Jicha, the former CEO of purported crypto mining and trading firm USI-Tech, is believed to have “tampered with his ankle bracelet” on Oct. 4 and “absconded in violation of his pretrial conditions,” an Oct. 10 court filing states.

Pretrial Services alerted the government approximately 12 hours after Jicha’s bracelet stopped working, nearly immediately seeking an arrest warrant against the fugitive.

Jicha, a German national, was arrested on Dec. 23, 2023 in Miami, Florida, after entering the United States for the first time in more than five years, to vacation there.

He hadn’t been in the US since he fled the country in 2018 after receiving cease-and-desist letters from US authorities.

Jicha was placed under home detention in New York on a $5 million bond guaranteed by his domestic partner and children, CNBC reported on Oct. 11.

“There’s a very active investigation underway to capture him,” John Marzulli, a spokesman for the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office told CNBC.

The 64-year-old was also forced to surrender his German passport in December — so an attempt at fleeing abroad may prove difficult.

His case was scheduled for trial on March 31, where he faces several securities fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges tied to his alleged involvement at USI-Tech.

Cointelegraph reached out to Jicha’s attorneys but didn’t receive an immediate response.

Related: Montenegro arrests executive suspected of $21M crypto fraud

Prosecutors claim Jicha promised investors that they would make a 1% return on their investments daily by participating in USI-Tech’s mining and trading scheme.

The New York authorities claim 1,774 Bitcoin (BTC) and 28,589 Ether (ETH) — worth more than $180 million at current prices — are missing from USI-Tech’s alleged fraud scheme.

The prosecutors claim those funds were transferred to a crypto exchange deposit address controlled by Jicha.

USI-Tech was supposedly founded in Europe in May 2017 before being “aggressively” marketed to US investors a few months later.

After receiving regulatory scrutiny from US authorities, USI-Tech shut down on Jan. 8, 2018, blaming investors for making misleading comments about USI-Tech’s products.

Investors were left unable to withdraw funds from USI-Tech’s portal.

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