SANTA ANA, California – Two Orange County men each were sentenced today to federal prison terms for conning more than 2,000 investors into purchasing a cryptocurrency that purportedly provided exclusive access to a profitable trading program, and then using most of the $1.9 million raised to line their own pockets.
Jeremy David McAlpine, 26, of Fountain Valley, was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison by United States District Judge Cormac J. Carney. In a separate hearing today, Judge Carney sentenced Zachary Michael Matar, 29, of Huntington Beach, to 30 months in federal prison. Judge Carney scheduled a September 26 restitution hearing in this case.
McAlpine and Matar each pleaded guilty in August 2021 to one count of securities fraud.
In 2017, McAlpine and Matar founded Dropil Inc., a Belize-based company operating out of Fountain Valley. Dropil provided and managed investments in digital assets including a cryptocurrency called DROPs that McAlpine and Matar developed. McAlpine and Matar were also primarily responsible for the development of Dropil’s digital asset trading program, an automated trading bot called “Dex,” which could be used exclusively with DROPs.
McAlpine and Matar induced investors to purchase DROPs by making false claims about DROPs, the functionality and profitability of Dex, and the number of investors and volume of investment in DROPs that had purportedly already been achieved and that purportedly enhanced – through the operation of supply and...
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