Centra Tech faked a Visa crypto card to raise $32M — its founder drew eight years

In the summer of 2017, Centra Tech, a Miami startup run by Sohrab Sharma, Raymond Trapani and Robert Farkas, sold 'CTR Tokens' in an ICO that raised more than $32 million. The pitch was a 'Centra Card' debit card 'backed by Visa and MasterCard' that would let users instantly spend cryptocurrencies anywhere cards were accepted. To sell it, the founders invented corporate executives with impressive biographies, filled the website with false marketing, and paid celebrities — Floyd Mayweather Jr. and DJ Khaled among them — to promote the sale to their followers.

The card and the partnerships did not exist. The SEC's April 2, 2018 complaint in the Southern District of New York alleged Centra had no relationships with Visa or MasterCard; Farkas was arrested before boarding a one-way flight abroad. An amended complaint days later charged Trapani as a mastermind and alleged he and Sharma had manipulated CTR trading to prop up the price. The SEC's release preserved the founders' own texts: after a bank sent a cease-and-desist over Centra's use of its name, Sharma wrote that they had to get it 'removed everywhere and blame freelancers lol.'

All three pleaded guilty in the parallel criminal case, United States v. Sharma et al., 18 Cr. 340. Farkas was sentenced in December 2020 to one year and one day and forfeited $347,062 and a Rolex bought with the proceeds. Sharma was sentenced in March 2021 to eight years, three years of supervised release, a $20,000 fine and forfeiture of $36,088,960. Trapani, whose cooperation the judge called extraordinary, received no prison time in April 2022 but was ordered to pay about $2.9 million to victims.

Sharma: 8 years plus $36.1M forfeiture; Farkas: 1 year + 1 day; Trapani: no prison, $2.9M owed; SEC disgorgement of about $40.7M across the three founders

The core feature — a debit card on the Visa and MasterCard rails — required partnerships Centra never had and never told investors it lacked.

Fictional executives with polished biographies stood in for the operating competence the founders did not have.

Paid celebrity endorsements created an appearance of legitimacy that neither the promoters nor the investors checked.

When a bank's cease-and-desist letter arrived, the founders hid it and planned to blame 'freelancers' instead of correcting the record.

Wash trading in CTR tokens faked the market demand that the product itself could not generate.

When a pitch needs a partnership you do not have and executives who do not exist, the project is not a startup but a fraud. Celebrity reach amplifies a claim; it cannot supply the missing product.

On May 17, 2022 the SDNY entered final SEC judgments on consent: disgorgement with interest of $37,701,966 against Sharma, $2,608,869 against Trapani and $394,908 against Farkas, each deemed satisfied by the criminal forfeiture orders. Mayweather and DJ Khaled avoided direct liability but had to disgorge their promotional fees and pay penalties. The U.S. Marshals Service sold the seized ether for about $33.4 million for distribution to harmed investors, and CTR traded toward zero. Trapani, who served no prison time, retold the story in the 2024 Netflix documentary 'Bitconned.'