Texas man sentenced to 23 years in $20M Meta‑1 Coin fraud

Robert Dunlap, a Texas resident who served as a trustee for the Meta‑1 Coin project, was sentenced to 23 years in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution after a judge handed down the penalty on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge LaShonda Hunt imposed the sentence following Dunlap’s conviction in November.

A federal jury in the Northern District of Illinois found Dunlap guilty on two counts of mail fraud. Prosecutors said the scheme ran from 2018 through 2023 and involved marketing a fictional token called Meta‑1 Coin through a Meta‑1 Coin Trust and a website known as the Meta Exchange.

Authorities allege Dunlap and co‑conspirators told investors the token was backed by $44 billion in gold and a $1 billion art collection that included works by Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh. Investors were promised returns as high as 224,923%, but the coins were never distributed and investor funds were diverted to personal expenses and luxury purchases, including a Ferrari, court records and the Securities and Exchange Commission show.

Prosecutors say the defendants used automated trading bots on the Meta Exchange to create the appearance of market activity, inflating the token’s price and trading volume to suggest liquidity and demand.

The SEC sought emergency relief in March 2020, obtaining an asset freeze and other orders to stop Dunlap, Nicole Bowdler and former Washington state Senator David Schmidt from marketing and selling the token. Dunlap’s conviction followed the agency’s enforcement action and a government criminal investigation.

In a sentencing memorandum, federal prosecutors wrote that Dunlap remained “unrepentant” and that his falsehoods grew “over the years.” The memorandum added: “Would‑be criminals planning to engage in similar conduct need to know that such actions will be met with a serious repercussion that includes loss of one’s liberty for an extended period of time.”

The case is one of several recent federal prosecutions and enforcement actions involving digital asset projects and allegations of fraud, theft and deceptive market practices.