Federal prosecutors have indicted Taj Tarsha, founder of the NFT startup Few and Far. They accuse him of stealing more than $10 million raised to build a decentralized marketplace.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced the charges on Wednesday. Tarsha, 34, of Miami, faces one count of securities fraud and one of wire fraud.

The Math Behind the $10 Million Raise

Tarsha started raising money in February 2022. He used Simple Agreements for Future Tokens (SAFTs), contracts that let investors pay now for tokens delivered later.

He sold 95 million FAR tokens to at least 67 backers, the indictment says. That works out to roughly 11 cents a token, and close to $150,000 per investor.

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The pitch carried real credibility. Few and Far ran on NEAR Protocol. The NEAR Foundation announced a grant and partnership in September 2022.

Tarsha owned every share of the company. Prosecutors say the money began leaving almost at once, moving to an online casino and speculative crypto trades.

The raise landed at the top of the collectibles boom. The NFT market cap slid toward record lows since then, and venues such as Gemini’s Nifty Gateway closed.

What the Audit Found

An audit in June 2023 caught the missing money. By then, prosecutors say, Tarsha had paid himself nearly $1 million through two hidden bonuses.

He hid those from investors and a co-founder. He also drew a salary he privately called unreasonable, given what he described as the company’s “zero revenue.”

Tarsha then told investors the bonuses matched preset presale targets. He said every remaining dollar was still needed. Both claims were false, prosecutors allege.

Nearly all staff were gone by then. One contractor stayed on, told to produce work that only looked like development.

The spending ran for 11 more months after the audit. It covered crypto buys, a Miami condominium loan, interior design work, and his DJ hobby.

FAR finally launched in May 2024. That was 27 months after the first investor paid in. The token arrived worthless and stopped trading soon after.

The Few and Far website is still online today, still advertising FAR as live on mainnet.

“As alleged, Taj Tarsha raised millions of dollars from investors by promising that their investments would be used to build a marketplace for non-fungible tokens, but he instead breached their trust by stealing those funds for his own personal benefit,” Deputy US Attorney Sean S. Buckley said that in a statement. The FBI’s New York office investigated.

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Each count carries up to 20 years. The case sits with US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who in April rejected Bankman-Fried’s retrial bid.

Kaplan sentenced the FTX founder to 25 years in March 2024 for stealing over $8 billion. Tarsha is accused of taking about one eight-hundredth of that sum.

The charges are allegations, and Tarsha is presumed innocent unless convicted. Prosecutors must now tie each purchase back to an investor deposit.

Source: BeInCrypto