Crypto▼ Bearish
Feds Hit Edward Zimbardi With $165M Crypto Fraud Counts
Edward Zimbardi faces 25 counts after $165M crypto fraud. The program paid 25% monthly returns using new investor money. Deportation from Fiji ended a year-long flight.
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Federal prosecutors in Georgia publicly detailed criminal charges against Edward Zimbardi this week after his deportation from Fiji to the United States. The 59-year-old resident of Flowery Branch faces accusations of running a investment fraud that diverted more than $165 million from thousands of participants worldwide, the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia said.
Between June 2022 and August 2023, Zimbardi promoted a venture called The Crypto Program through online videos and websites. He presented it as a way for people to buy digital advertising packages that would pay a fixed 25 percent monthly return, prosecutors said. Investors sent cryptocurrency into digital wallets that Zimbardi allegedly controlled without disclosing his ownership.
The advertising packages were never bought, authorities alleged. Instead, more than $34 million of the incoming funds went toward high-risk foreign currency trading that produced significant losses. Later participants’ contributions were used to pay earlier ones–a Ponzi-style structure, prosecutors said.
At least $10 million more covered personal spending, according to the indictment. That included a house bought for one of Zimbardi’s sons, luxury cars, and alimony payments to an ex-wife.
The program fell apart in August 2023. Investors could not get their principal back.
Zimbardi traveled to Hawaii and then Fiji. After learning of an FBI inquiry in July 2025, he stayed in Fiji for more than a year, prosecutors said. In May 2026 he scrapped travel plans for a family wedding in Virginia, correctly suspecting investigators might arrest him on arrival.
A federal grand jury indicted him on July 8 on twelve counts of wire fraud, twelve counts of money laundering, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Fijian authorities deported him on August 14 in coordination with the FBI and the State Department, once they learned of the outstanding charges.