Jeremie Sowerby arrested for MLM crypto Ponzi scamming
Jeremie Sowerby has been arrested on fraud charges related to multiple MLM crypto Ponzi schemes.
Sowerby and co-conspirator Luis Ortega were indicted under seal on September 19th.
The indictment details charges related to Now Mining, VIP Mining and Millennium Technologies.
As reviewed here on BehindMLM;
- Now Mining (2017) pitched investors on a 1% daily ROI for 280 days
- VIP Mining (2018) pitched investors on a variable daily ROI rate
Millennium Technologies I’m not familiar with but is described as a “cryptocurrency investment fraud scheme” in Sowerby’s and Ortega’s indictment. This is in line with Now Mining and VIP Mining (both used a crypto mining ruse).
The indictment cites Ortega (right) as CEO of all three Ponzi schemes.
ORTEGA regularly misrepresented and mischaracterized his employment history, business background, and financial expertise to victim investors.
Before 2017, ORTEGA had no meaningful background, experience, or knowledge about cryptocurrency mining or trading operations.
For each fraudulent cryptocurrency enterprise, ORTEGA represented himself as an owner, manager, and salesman.
Although he was co-owner of each scam, Sowerby’s role was to be the “primary salesperson” in each scheme.
SOWERBY also misrepresented and mischaracterized ORTEGA’s employment history, business background, and financial expertise to victim investors.
SOWERBY had no meaningful background, experience, or knowledge about cryptocurrency mining or trading operations.
Together with ORTEGA, he created deceptive sales presentations that contained elaborate lies and dishonest investment opportunities.
For each fraudulent cryptocurrency enterprise, SOWERBY also represented himself as an owner, manager, and salesman in each fraudulent enterprises.
Between Now Mining, VIP Mining and Millennium Technologies, Sowerby (right) and Ortega “defrauded about 290 victims of approximately $6,282,775.”
This money was wrongly deposited into, and transferred between, seventeen (17) banks controlled individually by either ORTEGA, SOWERBY, or SOWERBY’s girlfriend (K.B.).
As with all MLM Ponzi schemes, the primary beneficiaries of invested funds were those running the scam.
No victim funds in Now Mining were used to lease or buy cryptocurrency mining machines that generated profits for any of the victim-investors in Now Mining.
Instead, approximately two million dollars of investor funds were inappropriately used by defendants to buy actual Bitcoins in the market, and some of the Bitcoins were then used in a deceptive way by defendants to make it appear to victims that their actual investments were used to lease legitimate mining machines that purportedly generated profits for victims.
Most of the $2,000,000 in actual Bitcoins that defendants fraudulently purchased was never disbursed to victims, and the $6.2 million in victim funds overall were either moved to private accounts controlled by defendants or spent by defendants to buy homes and live lavishly.
VIP Mining took in around $726,000 from ~80 investors. This time Sowerby and Ortega did purchase 1,200 mining rigs.
But (they) never created the necessary infrastructure to power and cool the mining machines they bought.
Defendants tried to establish two VIP Mining warehouses – one in Phoenix and one in Tempe.
About 200 machines were earmarked for the Phoenix location and 1,000 machines for the Tempe site.
From inception, both facilities had insufficient power and cooling capacity, and defendants lacked the skills and means to operate either facility.
Little or no income was generated by these approximately 1200 machines (most of which were never hooked up to power), and eventually defendant ORTEGA absconded with most of these mining machines in October 2018.
VIP Mining collapsed within 10 months.
Millennium Technologies was set up a few months after VIP Mining launched in early 2018.
This time the ruse was “a real estate development and technology company that designed, built, and funded custom smart homes.”
Millennium Technologies ran its Ponzi scheme through a Millennium shitcoin.
Defendants produced elaborate and deceptive marketing materials. They falsely described a sophisticated and embellished corporate structure, and grossly lied about Millennium’s actual business operations.
Defendants had no meaningful record keeping or accounting processes, and victim “investments” were siphoned immediately to private and personal financial accounts owned and controlled by defendants.
Millennium Technologies took in around $500,000 from just 20 investors.
Like the other two fraudulent businesses, there were no business records, and victim funds only went to ORTEGA, SOWERBY, and SOWERBY’s girlfriend (KB).
Defendants continued to move investor funds into private bank accounts they controlled and used the money to continue funding their expensive lifestyles.
All in all Sowerby’s and Ortega’s MLM crypto Ponzi crime spree defrauded around 400 investors out of over $7.5 million.
Sowerby’s and Ortega’s indictment details 44 counts of wire fraud and ten counts of money laundering.
The DOJ are seeking forfeiture of ill-gotten gains and assets, which includes:
- a property in Phoenix, Arizona titled to Sorbes Group LLC
- a property in Lynn, Indiana titled to Global Works LLC
- a property in Glendale, Arizona titled to Juliet Rozo
- a property in Richmond, INdiana titled to Global Works LLC
Following his indictment Sowerby was arrested on September 22nd.
Sowerby made his initial appearance on September 26th, wherein he pled not guilty. Sowerby’s criminal trial has been tentatively scheduled for November 14th, 2023.
Luis Ortega hasn’t been arrested yet but a summons was executed on him on September 27th.
The summons orders Ortega to present himself before the Arizona District Court on October 11th, 2023.
In related regulatory litigation, the Arizona Corporation Commission filed suit against Sowerby for securities fraud back in May.
As of September 8th, Sowerby’s civil securities fraud case remains pending.
Stay tuned for updates we continue to track Sowerby’s and Ortega’s new criminal case.
Update 22nd October 2023 – A jury trial has tentatively been scheduled for December 12th, 2023.
I’m expecting this will be pushed back. Jeremie Sowerby already filed a motion to the continue the trial date on October 18th.
Update 5th November 2023 – Sowerby’s motion to continue his trial has been rescheduled for a hearing on November 14th.
Sowerby was denied release to “home arrest or electronic monitoring” on November 2nd. Another detention hearing has been scheduled for November 28th.
Update 7th November 2023 – The DOJ’s detention motion regarding Sowerby has revealed he’s facing additional indictments.
Update 15th November 2023 – Jeremy Sowerby’s Now Mining criminal case was designated “complex” on November 13th.
On November 14th the originally scheduled December 12th trial was continued to June 19th, 2024.
Update 30th November 2023 – Following his second indictment, at Sowerby’s request his Now Mining detention hearing has been continued to December 19th.
Update 7th March 2024 – Sowerby remains in detention, having been deemed an “extreme flight risk”.
Following a motion filed by Sowerby on February 16th, the court has rescheduled his Now Mining trial due to it being a “complex case”.
A new trial date has been scheduled for February 11th, 2025.
Update 16th May 2024 – Following a second motion to continue from Jeremy Sowerby on May 6th, the Now Mining trial has been rescheduled again to May 19th, 2025.
Yep. And there are more indictments to come!!
I hope this is a wake up call for the people who still believe in him. You are all clinging to the hope that his lies are not lies, and that he is going to pay you out. LMAO..
All you people on his discord channel listening and believing in his crap; educate yourself on what a Ponzi scheme is! Educate yourselves on how scammers work!! Especially ones like Jeremie Sowerby with such an extensive public track record of nefarious dealings.
You’ve all heard the term “rob Peter to Pay Paul”. That’s all Jeremie does. Last round Peter was most of you! Then a few of you became Paul where you got some money (but not all) … Just enough to keep you believing his crap stories like that he needed to secure a liquidity provider to finish paying you out. Wake up!
The liquidity provider is merely another investor about to become another victim so he can again rob Peter to pay Paul. Stop letting your desperation to get paid blind your sense of reality!
My question to you “believers” (you know who you are!) How many you are willing to go to jail for wire fraud? Because at this point when a fraudster is so obviously scamming people, the criminal Justice system starts to take a closer look at his associations and the names of people who are promoting the source of the fraud.
Considering the gig is up for Jeremie .. How many of you are still willing to stand by his side and possibly become his cell mate?
I’m the mother of 2 children.. Also the victim of this scam .. I put £10 000 into Blokx.
Graig is the collaborator, who introduces people from UK .. That’s how I met these scammers.
Helen, please don’t be shy and provide details so we can investigate Jeremies active network. Jeremie and his accomplices need to be fully exposed. It’s the only thing that will cripple his criminal network.
Names, email addresses, phone numbers, cities, office address’s…. There are active, ongoing investigations and your information will help us secure his hidden assets to hopefully recover funds for victims.
Anyone else that want a chance at getting your money back. State your claim publicly here. Provide some actionable details against the people involved in scamming you. Don’t remain quiet hoping that Jeremie will pay you out. He will not be doing so.
Alternately if your not comfortable exposing him publicly.. Please report to the police in the jurisdiction you are interacting with him in, or the FBI, or the Arizona securities commission.
My statements above are for OSINT purposes, and not on behalf of any law enforcement agency.
DrkBird, I have been on the inside and have many answers, as much as I have questions. My family has Hundreds of thousands of dollars invested.
I will help with everything I know to try to recover our funds.
I owned 12 miners. I sill get messages back from the Exchange telling me things are about to restart.
So there is no new Liquidity Provider for the business? Does the Exchange have our money or is it all fake? All the tokens listed and the trading bot all fake? I lost over a hundred grand or so in this.
You invested into a Ponzi scheme. Your money was stolen by Sowerby and early investors.
Jeremie is a sociopath that got called out a very long time ago on BlockX.
He had a bunch of goofballs on the discord who would defend him to the end of time which made it hard to gain any traction.
Hope he gets thrown in prison for a very long time.
Yes, Jeremie is a classic sociopath. I am pretty sure he actually believes his own lies.
You people who still believe he is going to pay you out… If you have any plan for action against him.. Stop thinking or waiting and act on it now, or you will lose any chance of recovering your funds. Let this be your fair warning!
He has over 25 companies in the USA with joint partners, most of which are fully aware of what he is doing and are helping him to launder money & hide assets.
Since February of 2023, he has been busy re-structuring ownership shares in those companies, as well as moving assets out of his name into those restructured companies.
He knows he is caught, and it’s obvious that he is trying to protect his ill-gotten assets. If you still have some inkling of a thought that he will pay you out, try to think logically.
A man who has taken so much money and currently can’t pay any of it back is a man who should not own any assets!
Anyone who wants to collaborate with me directly can do so at (removed) ; Anything you send me will be handled with the strictest discretion.. However, I encourage you not to be shy and post more info in this thread to help motivate the blind sheep to realize Jeremie has scammed them.
Transparency is the power you all have to shut him down. Anyone who asks him a concerning or negative question in his discord gets booted… Why do you think that is??
The last thing he wants is for anyone to share information or collaborate. All of you in his discord channel should gather in another channel where you can ask honest questions and collaborate without the fear of talking and getting booted.. You will soon realize what is going on.
Oz, I want to take a moment to commend you on your thorough reporting.. It takes a tremendous amount of work hours to find, verify, and report the information in an organized fashion as you do with little to no benefit for yourself..
Not just on Jeremie but every scam you have listed.. Great work!
I was early in but lost everything. Do I need to get a lawyer or is someone here doing something?
There are lawyers who work on contingency.
@DrkBird Thanks for the support!
No email because I can’t vouch (or have any inclination to) third-party solicitation when it comes to recovery efforts. Only exceptions to this are regulators/authorities, Receiverships and filed civil court cases.
This isn’t entirely true. I get a share in the popcorn with everyone! *nomnomnom*
Lawyer to do what? You can’t tack onto a DOJ criminal case.
If you’re unsure of anything legal by all means see a lawyer for legal advice though.
I would suggest everyone thats been scammed by Jeremie should reach out to Toni Brown at the Arizona Corporation Commission thats handling the we sell miners case.
Here is her info:
Toni Brown
Special Investigator
Securities Division
Arizona Corporation Commission
Don’t forget to mention Disruptive Studio and Daniel Cruz as part of the Millennium Network and VIP mining scam.
You can find old social media advertising published by him promoting the Millennium ICO and the VIP mining business opportunity.
Article updated with tentative trial date.
Article updated with Sowerby being denied release and new motion to continue hearing date.
Article updated with Sowerby’s new 2024 Now Mining trial date.
Article updated with Sowerby’s new 2025 Now Mining trial date.
Article updated with Sowerby’s new May 2025 Now Mining trial date.