Taj Tarsha, founder of Few and Far, charged with securities and wire fraud after allegedly misusing investor funds for gambling, crypto bets, and a Miami condo.
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Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged Taj Tarsha, the founder of the NFT startup Few and Far, with securities and wire fraud. They allege he took more than $10 million from investors and spent it on gambling, speculative crypto bets, and a Miami condominium instead of building the marketplace he promised.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment Thursday. Tarsha, 34, of Miami, founded Few and Far Limited, a British Virgin Islands company that claimed to be building a decentralized NFT marketplace on NEAR Protocol. Prosecutors say he began selling Simple Agreements for Future Tokens (SAFTs) in February 2022, offering buyers the right to receive FAR tokens once the platform was ready.
Tarsha sold 95 million FAR tokens to at least 67 investors, raising over $10 million that was supposed to fund the platform and the token, the indictment said. Instead, the money went to an online casino, risky cryptocurrency trades, a loan tied to a Miami condominium, his DJ hobby, and interior design work. Tarsha also paid himself close to $1 million through two bonuses he hid from investors and from one of his co-founders, plus a salary he privately conceded was unreasonable given the company had no product and, in his own words, "zero revenue."
Few and Far itself raised around $10.5 million in a funding round led by Pantera Capital. The company was founded a year earlier by Tarsha, Chris Gale, and Chris Hayes on NEAR Protocol.
An internal audit in June 2023 revealed some of the money was missing. Tarsha allegedly reassured investors by telling them the bonuses were tied to preset FAR presale targets and that every remaining dollar was still needed to finish the project. At that point, he had already dismissed nearly all staff and left a single contractor to produce work that only looked like development, prosecutors said.
Once colleagues discovered the missing funds, Tarsha was removed from Few and Far's multi-signature wallet. When the FAR token finally went live in May 2024, it collapsed. Prosecutors say it was effectively worthless and stopped trading soon after, falling more than 99% from its launch price, according to Inner City Press.
Tarsha was arrested June 6, 2026, and released four days later on a $500,000 personal recognizance bond. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. Each charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. Tarsha is presumed innocent unless convicted.
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