Frenchman Sentenced to 18 Months in Jail for Using Bitcoin to a Purchase Luxury Car

A Frenchman has been sentenced to 18 months in jail for using Bitcoin to purchase a luxury car and providing a counterfeit check to another vendor for luxury watches, defrauding both. The plaintiffs accused the defendant, Thomas Clausi, of fraud, and the Casablanca Court of Appeal ruled that he would serve jail time and compensate the victims. Clausi has been in a correctional facility since December 2021 and will serve only one month and a few more days in prison. Morocco does not support crypto payments, but its adoption and usage among residents continues to increase.

In the first instance, Clausi purchased a Ferrari car for $440,000 BTC from a French woman in Morocco. The woman later reported him to the authorities for fraud. In the second case, Clausi bought three luxury watches from another man but gave him a counterfeit check that could not be processed due to insufficient funds. The court deemed the defendant's purchases as fraudulent and illegal, as he made payments with crypto, which wasn't legalized in Morocco, and using a check that couldn't be processed due to insufficient funds.

While scams in the crypto industry are on the rise, authorities have been relentless in bringing bad actors to book. One notable case is the arrest and detention of Do Kwon, the founder of Terra, who was arrested in March by the Montenegro authorities and might be extradited to South Korea or the United States for multiple charges regarding the crash of Terra and investor losses.

Similarly, Gilbert Armenta, who was previously involved in a romantic relationship with Ruja Ignatova, popularly known as the "Cryptoqueen," has been sentenced to five years in prison for his involvement in the notorious OneCoin scam. Cooper Morgenthau, the former CFO of African Gold, has also been sentenced to three years in jail for embezzling $5 million from various SPACs and using the money to trade meme stocks.

The adoption and usage of crypto among Moroccan residents continue to increase, despite the country not supporting crypto payments. In 2022, the country's central bank, Al-Maghrib, announced plans to develop a regulatory framework that will guide the use of crypto by citizens and created a committee to oversee the process. However, while the bank aimed to regulate crypto usage with its draft law, the Alawi kingdom remained negative about the move.