A federal jury in Chicago has found Robert Dunlap, 54, of Houston, Texas, guilty of two counts of mail fraud for orchestrating a cryptocurrency scheme that defrauded nearly 1,000 investors out of at least $14 million. The verdict was delivered after a week-long trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Dunlap marketed and sold a digital asset called “Meta-1 Coin” through what he referred to as the “Meta-1 Coin Trust” from 2018 to 2023. He made false claims to potential and actual investors about the coin being backed by $1 billion in art and $44 billion in gold. He also stated that an accounting firm had audited the gold holdings and certified their value. The alleged art collection was said to include works by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and Vincent Van Gogh.
In addition to these misrepresentations, Dunlap used automated trading bots to artificially inflate both the price and trading volume of Meta-1 Coin on the “Meta Exchange,” a website he created for this purpose. To conceal his actions, he generated various legal, insurance, and other documents falsely suggesting ownership of the gold and artwork.
The conviction was announced by Andrew S. Boutros, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Douglas S. DePodesta, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI; and Adam Jobes, Special Agent-in-Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in Chicago. Assistance was provided by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
U.S. District Judge LaShonda A. Hunt scheduled sentencing for February 17, 2026. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
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