Kriti Mehrotra
With Bryan Storkel’s ‘Bitconned’ living up to its title in every way conceivable, we get a documentary that can only be described as equal parts bewildering, intriguing, haunting, and shocking. That’s because it delves deep into the way three individuals managed to exploit millions from innocent, unsuspecting cryptocurrency investors through a single phony establishment in 2017-2018. Amongst them was actually Robert Joseph Farkas, former stripper turned Centra Tech co-founder turned crypto executive turned finance industry fraudster turned convicted federal criminal.
Who is Robert Farkas?
It was reportedly around early 2017 when Bay Harbor Islands native Robert first learned of the crypto world through his then-girlfriend’s brother Sohrab “Sam” Sharma, just to soon get caught up in it. The truth is he was a model-exotic dancer at the time, but the promise of being involved in the “future of finance” via a compelling “new technology” was something he merely couldn’t pass up. He thus evolved into a co-founder of Centra Tech alongside Sam and Raymond “Ray” Trapani, seemingly unaware at the time that the product/service he was marketed by the former didn’t exist.
“[The concept of Centra Tech] was the most exciting thing I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Robert candidly stated in the aforementioned original. “Everyone wanted to be a part of it. Even if you didn’t know much about crypto, you were like, ‘Wow, that’s really cool. You’ve created a debit card that connects magic internet money to the real world?’ [Sam] needed help. He needed employees. He was doing too much on his own. He was juggling a million things and that’s when mistakes happen. I said, ‘I’m not a software engineer, but I can add value to the company in some way, shape, or form,'” leading him to become the Chief Financial Officer.
Robert also held the titles of Chief Operating Officer as well as Chief Marketing Officer at different points during this organization’s active operations, with his primary role being user interaction. In fact, according to court records, he was “[r]esponsible for keeping the public informed of each and every move involved with the Centra Card, Centra Wallet, cBay.io and the Currency Conversion Engine (CCE) Module.” Moreover, he apparently oversaw Centra’s online presence and their Token’s listing on various digital asset exchanges before trying alongside his fellow co-founders to actually make their marketed services a reality, but to no avail.
We should also mention that per official documents, Robert also assisted with the company’s general management, oversaw specific edits to certain promotional materials, often handled website changes/updates, and helped bribe trolls too. In other words, alongside Sam as well as Ray, he practically masterminded the Centra scheme of persuading victims to invest hundreds of dollars worth of digital funds into their business, only to fill their own pockets — this totaled over $32 million. Hence, of course, thanks to victims turned public accusers, the SEC, the Department of Justice, the truth eventually came to light, and the FBI arrested him on April 1, 2023.
Robert Farkas is Trying to Move On Today
Considering Ray’s cooperation, the evidence against him, plus his own guilt, Robert pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud for his role in connection to this matter. He was hence ordered to serve 366 days in federal prison, spend three years under supervised release, as well as forfeit nearly $350,000 cash and a Rolex watch purchased with fraud proceeds. Though he maintains the sentencing was not fair across the board since Sam got eight years on rather similar charges, whereas all Ray received was time served (a mere month before bail) despite having pled guilty to 10 counts solely owing to his “extraordinary” cooperation.
Coming to Robert’s current standing, as he was likely released from behind bars in late 2021 (he was sentenced on December 15, 2020, two years and seven months after getting bail), it appears as if he remains on supervision in his home state of Florida to this day. From what we can tell, this 37-year-old actually prefers to stay well away from the limelight at the moment due to everything that has transpired, yet he is apparently trying to move on with his life to the best of his abilities. It’s obviously not an easy process, but he seems to gradually be making headway by opening up about the past to really share his side of the story as well as focusing on his probably more positive recent experiences. We honestly wish him nothing but the best for his future.
Read More: Ray Trapani: Where is Centra Co-Founder Now?
