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.
Linked scams & cases
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
- Blockchain Terminal (BCT)TokensA 2017–2018 ICO (BCT tokens, ~$30M) for a 'Blockchain Terminal' — a Bloomberg-style crypto trading terminal. The SEC and DOJ said convicted ex-hedge-funder Boaz Manor secretly ran it under a fake identity ('Shaun MacDonald'), using associate Edith Pardo as a front, and lied about the product's adoption.
- Profit ConnectProjectsA Las Vegas company that the SEC said was a $12M+ Ponzi scheme: it told 277+ investors their money would be invested in securities and crypto via an 'artificial intelligence supercomputer' guaranteeing 20–30% annual returns. The SEC halted it in 2021; over 90% of funds came from investors.
- Dropil (DROP)Tokens
This page was last updated on Jun 8, 2026. View revision history.