According to Cointelegraph, a man under home detention for his alleged involvement in a $150 million cryptocurrency fraud scheme is reportedly on the run after tampering with his ankle bracelet, New York prosecutors said. Horst Jicha, the former CEO of the purported crypto mining and trading firm USI-Tech, is believed to have tampered with his ankle bracelet on October 4 and absconded in violation of his pretrial conditions, according to an October 10 court filing. Pretrial Services alerted the government approximately 12 hours after Jicha’s bracelet stopped working, prompting an immediate request for an arrest warrant against the fugitive.
Jicha, a German national, was arrested on December 23, 2023, in Miami, Florida, after entering the United States for the first time in more than five years to vacation there. He had not been in the US since fleeing 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 October 11. John Marzulli, a spokesman for the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office, stated that there is a very active investigation underway to capture him. The 64-year-old was also forced to surrender his German passport in December, making an attempt to flee abroad more difficult.
Jicha’s 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. Prosecutors claim Jicha promised investors a 1% return on their investments daily by participating in USI-Tech’s mining and trading scheme. 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. Prosecutors allege Jicha transferred those funds to a crypto exchange deposit address controlled by him. 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 January 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.
