Man pleads guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court to extortion scheme
Told victims he had ties to CIA, FBI and IRA
On Monday, in federal court in Brooklyn, Michael Hlady, aka Michael Peters, pleaded guilty before United States Chief District Court Judge Margo K. Brodie to conspiring to extort a startup company for millions of dollars in the cryptocurrency Ether (ETH). When sentenced, Hlady faces up to 20 years in prison, as well as a fine.
The victim company, which was not named, was a startup mobile-based business that issued cryptocurrency tokens such as ETH as loyalty rewards for generating user traffic to its clients’ products.
To raise capital, the company planned to conduct an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in November 2017. In connection with the ICO, Hlady told the company’s executives that he had been a part of the Irish Republican Army, the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation; that he had been shot at and had killed people; and that he had “taken down” a head of state.