A former Deutsche Bank AG investment banker has been charged in an indictment unsealed on Tuesday with misappropriating funds from investors who he wooed with promises of big returns from cryptocurrency trading, Reuters reported. Rashawn Russell, 27, of Brooklyn, solicited investments from friends and colleagues but used the funds for gambling and other personal expenses, federal prosecutors said. According to the indictment, Russell told prospective investors that he was a licensed broker who worked in investment banking and could help them earn large and sometimes guaranteed returns from R3, a cryptocurrency fund he claimed to run. Prosecutors said Russell transferred some funds into a trading account but siphoned the rest, and sent fake documentation to investors about how their money was doing. Russell, arrested on Monday in Brooklyn after being charged in a sealed indictment last Thursday, faces one count of wire fraud for a scheme that prosecutors said ran from November 2020 through August 2022.
