Pablo Renato Rodriguez
Co-founder of AirBit Club, a ~$100M global cryptocurrency pyramid scheme. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 2023 to 12 years in prison, with a $65M forfeiture.
Also known as: Renato Rodriguez, Pablo Renato Rodriguez
Bio
Pablo Renato Rodriguez co-founded AirBit Club with Gutemberg Dos Santos in 2015, marketing it as a crypto mining and trading multi-level-marketing opportunity that promised guaranteed daily returns on $1,000+ "memberships." The SDNY said no real mining or trading occurred and investor money funded the operators' lifestyles, with victims pushed to pay in cash to obscure the fraud. [1][2]
Legal outcome
Rodriguez pleaded guilty and, on September 26, 2023, was sentenced to 12 years in prison plus three years of supervised release, and ordered to forfeit $65 million along with a jet, cash, and luxury goods. (He and Dos Santos had previously settled SEC charges over a separate scheme, Vizinova.) [1][2]
Bracketed numbers refer to the numbered sources listed below.
Sources (2)
- AirBit Club Co-Founder Gets 12 Years in Prison After Guilty Plea — Bloomberg Law
- Crypto Ponzi scheme AirBit Club co-founder locked up — The Register
See also
Luke BelmarIndividualsCryptocurrency influencer Luke Belmar (@lukebelmar on X) became the subject of controversy following allegations related to the promotion of a memecoin. Critics on social media alleged that Belmar used a series of posts referencing a forthcoming cryptocurrency project and a large-scale airdrop to generate interest in a token without explicitly identifying a specific contract address. Belmar published multiple posts discussing an upcoming memecoin, describing plans for what he characterized as a major airdrop and making comparisons to other cryptocurrency projects. Because no contract address was publicly provided, several tokens emerged claiming association with his statements. Critics alleged that this ambiguity enabled speculation around multiple tokens while avoiding a direct endorsement of any particular asset.
Evolved Apes (NFT)ProjectsAn NFT collection launched on OpenSea in September 2021 that promised a fighting game. About a week later its anonymous developer 'Evil Ape' vanished with 798 ETH (~$2.7M). In June 2024 U.S. prosecutors charged three U.K. nationals over the scheme.
This page was last updated on Jun 15, 2026. View revision history.