Crypto trader Avi Eisenberg faces up to 20 years in prison for $110 million Mango Markets fraud

In December 2022, crypto trader Avi Eisenburg was arrested in Puerto Rico for defrauding crypto Mango Market users of $110 million. In a trial yesterday in New York statements from both sides were being heard by a jury of 12 members.

Yesterday, on April 17, the jury heard the government’s closing statements against Avi Eisenberg who was charged with commodities fraud and manipulation and wire fraud in 2022. The 28-year-old crypto trader was accompanied by his mother and two family members at the court.

Avi Esenberg versus Mango Markets trial proceedings

On Monday and Tuesday, Jeremy Sheridan, a former Secret Service agent and now a crypto investigator, testified at the court. He questioned the legitimacy of Eisenberg’s trades and whether they fell within the confines of borrowing as per the Mango market codebase or if they were part of a scheme to deceive people.

However, the court deemed his arguments and theories as unacceptable and unreasonable due to insufficient understanding of the Mango Market Codebase.

Prosecutors argued by revealing Avi Eisenberg’s illegal activities of market manipulation by trading on large sums of Mango to increase the prices by over 1000%, which he then leveraged to deceive the platform into allowing him to siphon cryptocurrencies worth $110 million through the platform’s “borrow” feature.

Prosecutors accused Avi of theft for scamming the market worth millions of dollars, who then later promised to return $67 million of the total sum of his fraud to Mango Markets for not pursuing any criminal charges against him or freezing the remaining of his theft.

Brian Klein, Eisenberg’s defence attorney stated that Avi was just another “successful” trader who was trading with Mango Markets following all of their protocols, and was using the platform as per its user guidelines. He stated that all Avi did was use the Mango Market platform and made a lot of money from it.

However, prosecutors state that Eisenberg was fully aware of what he was doing. His internet search history prior to getting caught revealed searches like “statute of limitations market manipulation” and “elements of fraud.” He had also searched for flights to Israel and FBI supervision and extradition in the country while attempting to flee to the country right after the fraud.

The prosecutors closed their arguments by saying that’s how a fraud is planned.

Brian Klein counterargued that his client was not running away with the money, rather he was fleeing for his safety from Mango Markets users’ threats. He initiated legal action against Circle and Ascendx, a Romanian exchange after his assets were frozen to reclaim his funds to return to the U.S. because he knew he wasn’t a criminal.

Prosecutors in their rebuttal argued that Avi only tried to get his money back legally only after his fraudulent activities had been exposed, and the only reason why he tried to settle with the Mango Market was so he could move back to the U.S.

If found guilty of all three charges against him, Avi might have to face prison for up to 20 years.

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