SafeMoon CEO’s Crypto Con: Lambos, Secret Wallets, and Millions Gone

Another day, another crypto scandal—this time with a side of luxury car purchases and off-the-books wallets. SafeMoon’s CEO just gave the SEC its easiest case of 2025.

How it worked: Promised moon, delivered crash. The usual.

Hidden wallets siphoned investor funds while the project’s tokenomics paper turned out to be creative fiction. But hey, at least someone got a new Lamborghini out of it.

Bonus finance jab: If only traditional banks had this level of ’innovation’ in moving client funds, Wall Street might actually be interesting.

TLDR:

• Braden Karony, SafeMoon CEO, was convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering
• He faces up to 45 years in prison for misappropriating millions in investor funds
• The jury deliberated for less than a day before finding him guilty on all counts
• Karony used diverted funds to purchase luxury cars and real estate worth millions
• Former CTO Thomas Smith testified against Karony after pleading guilty, while co-conspirator Kyle Nagy remains at large

SafeMoon Fraud Case Ends with CEO Conviction

A U.S. federal jury has found Braden Karony, CEO of digital asset firm SafeMoon, guilty on all counts in a major crypto fraud case.

The 12-day trial in the Eastern District of New York ended with Karony convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.

Karony now faces up to 45 years in prison when sentenced. The jury ordered the forfeiture of one residential property and the proceeds from the sale of another, totaling approximately $2 million.

🚨 BREAKING: Former SafeMoon CEO Braden John Karony has been found guilty on all three criminal counts against him: Securities Fraud Conspiracy, Wire Fraud Conspiracy, and Money Laundering Conspiracy pic.twitter.com/KR5iqInMoI

— Protos (@Protos) May 21, 2025

Prosecutors presented evidence that Karony and his co-conspirators deliberately misled investors about the structure and safety of the SafeMoon token, which was issued in 2021.

The token applied a 10% transaction tax on transfers, with half supposedly redistributed to token holders and the remainder locked in a liquidity pool to support trading.

This directly contradicted their public claims about not holding or trading SafeMoon tokens.

The Fraud Scheme Unraveled

The court heard how Karony personally obtained more than $9 million in crypto assets from the scheme. He used these diverted funds to purchase multiple properties, luxury vehicles including an Audi R8 and Tesla, and custom trucks.

To hide his activities, Karony concealed his trading and use of investor funds through a network of pseudonymous wallets and unhosted accounts on centralized exchanges. This elaborate deception allowed him to operate undetected for a period of time.

U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella, Jr. stated, “The SafeMoon digital asset was anything but SAFE and turned out to be pie in the sky for investors who were deliberately misled by Karony, a man who sought to get rich quick by stealing and diverting millions of dollars.”

The SafeMoon token once reached an impressive market cap of more than $8 billion before collapsing amid fraud allegations. This collapse left many investors with substantial losses.

The jury in Karony’s case took just hours to deliberate after the two-week trial, during which he repeatedly claimed innocence. Thomas Smith, the former chief technology officer of SafeMoon, testified against Karony after entering a guilty plea as part of a deal with prosecutors.

Another co-defendant, Kyle Nagy, who created the platform, remains at large and has reportedly fled to Russia.

The case was investigated by multiple federal agencies including the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, and Homeland Security Investigations, with assistance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Karony’s conviction follows other high-profile crypto fraud cases, including former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky who received 12 years in prison after a guilty plea, and former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried who was sentenced to 25 years after his 2023 trial.