An Arizona resident has entered a guilty plea in a broad cryptocurrency investment fraud case, admitting to multiple schemes that bilked hundreds of people out of millions of dollars over several years.
Jeremie Andrew Sowerby, 48, of Fountain Hills, Arizona, pleaded guilty this month to wire fraud tied to schemes running from 2017 through 2023. His plea resolves charges across three separate criminal cases, and a federal judge has scheduled sentencing for Oct. 14, 2026. Authorities say the conduct spanned multiple businesses and targeted both individual investors and groups marketed through multi-level techniques.
Sowerby admitted to running a cryptocurrency investment operation between 2017 and 2018 under the names Now Mining, VIP Mining, and Millennium Technologies. Prosecutors say he portrayed himself as a multi-level marketing promoter and convinced people to invest in mining operations that were not legitimate. Investigators estimate about 400 victims lost at least $7.5 million to that particular scheme.
He was indicted in connection with that operation alongside a co-defendant, Luis Ortega, whose charges remain pending at this time.
From 2018 through 2019, Sowerby also admitted to defrauding at least 150 victims with a different company, Dumanis Global Technologies. Victims were led to buy cryptocurrency mining machines and pay for monthly storage and power costs for equipment that prosecutors say never existed. The losses from Dumanis are described as several million dollars, adding to the total harm alleged across all schemes.
Between 2021 and 2023, Sowerby promoted an investment called Justice Capital, which he marketed as a hedge fund available only to high-income investors. Justice Capital was said to use a trading “bot” algorithm, and through that vehicle Sowerby admitted to defrauding an individual of $207,000. Authorities treat this as part of a pattern of offers that traded on tech-sounding promises while failing to deliver real, verifiable returns.
The plea agreement includes a commitment by Sowerby to pay restitution of up to $30 million to victims tied to a long list of entities prosecutors identified. Those companies include Now Mining, VIP Mining, Millennium Technologies, Dunamis Global Technologies, SOFTEK, LLC, Justice Capital, Stealth Capital, FX Primary, Phoenix Ultra, Limitless Trading, Block Mint, Block X (BLKX), Digital Mint, 888 Management, Kannabiz Koin (KK), Kannabiz Monkeez, My Blockchain Life, My Block X, and We Sell Miners. That restitution figure aims to address the losses across allegedly fraudulent operations rather than a single, isolated transaction.
A conviction for wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison under federal law, though actual penalties depend on sentencing guidelines and factors such as restitution, number of victims, and the defendant’s role. Sowerby’s scheduled sentencing will determine the court’s view of those factors and the appropriate punishment for the offenses to which he pled guilty. The plea resolves the formal criminal counts in the three pending cases against him.
Cryptocurrency itself is a digital currency that operates on a blockchain, and while it has legitimate uses, investigators note the market contains many tokens and ventures with little intrinsic value. There are roughly 20,000 actively traded cryptocurrencies, and volatility plus lack of oversight in some corners have made the sector attractive to bad actors offering false guarantees. That technical complexity can make fraud easier to conceal and harder for typical investors to dissect without expert help.
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Federal authorities continue working to identify and notify victims connected to these alleged schemes, and both the FBI’s Phoenix Division and IRS-Criminal Investigation are listed as investigators on the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsay Short, District of Arizona, Phoenix, is handling the prosecution. The unfolding record will show how restitution is allocated and whether additional charges emerge against others tied to the operations.
