15 months for fake staking: how a New York resident impersonated crypto influencers
A U.S. federal court sentenced 39-year-old Noman Salim from Queens to 15 months in prison for crypto fraud. His scheme was simple but effective: he copied the usernames of well-known crypto influencers on Telegram and created fake VIP communities.
Salim began his activities back in December 2020. He created a public Telegram channel by copying the username of a popular trader. Thousands of users subscribed, thinking they were communicating with the real celebrity. He then launched a paid VIP chat with a subscription fee of $500–600 in cryptocurrency. Victims paid, confident they would receive exclusive trading signals directly from the influencer.
But Salim did not stop there. He copied the username of a second crypto influencer and repeated the same scheme, expanding his audience. Inside these chats, he offered investors staking with fixed returns for periods ranging from 30 to 90 days. He promised higher payouts for large deposits, but in reality, he never placed the funds in actual staking pools. It was a classic pyramid scheme disguised as asset management.
Money and Justice
Victims transferred cryptocurrency to wallets controlled by Salim. Once the assets arrived, he simply cut off communication and disappeared. According to the investigation, the scheme netted the fraudster at least $1.4 million in cryptocurrency and fiat dollars. Salim returned most of this amount to the state as part of a pre-trial agreement.
The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanu. Salim pleaded guilty in September 2025. In addition to the prison term, he was sentenced to three years of supervised release after leaving prison. This case is a stark example of how Telegram's anonymity and trust in big names are used to drain funds from naive investors.
Cryptalist Analysis: This verdict is an important signal for the market. U.S. authorities are demonstrating that even anonymous crypto wallets do not guarantee impunity. For investors, it is a reminder: verifying an influencer's identity through multiple channels and avoiding any schemes with "guaranteed returns" is the only way not to become a victim. Fixed-income staking from unknown individuals is always a red flag.