Las Vegas Man Convicted in $24M AI Crypto Mining Ponzi Scheme, Faces Up to 280 Years

A federal jury in Nevada has convicted Las Vegas businessman Brent C. Kovar on 15 counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering. The underlying allegation was as cinematic as it was fabricated: an artificial-intelligence supercomputer, mining cryptocurrency on behalf of at least 400 investors. No such supercomputer existed.

The verdict, announced Monday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada, followed a nine-day trial. Jurors found Kovar guilty on 11 counts of wire fraud, two counts of mail fraud, and two counts of money laundering. He now faces a statutory maximum of 280 years in federal prison. Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 30, at which point a federal judge will determine the actual term under U.S. sentencing guidelines.

The scheme operated through Kovar’s company, Profit Connect. Prosecutors said the firm solicited investments from late 2017 through July 2021, promising fixed annual returns of 15% to 30% alongside a 100% money-back guarantee. The company was never profitable. It held no cryptocurrency reserves and possessed no mechanism to honor the guarantee it advertised. Investor funds instead went toward company operations, employee gifts, a house for Kovar himself, and payments to earlier investors passed off as mining proceeds.

That last detail defines the classic Ponzi structure. Returns to existing investors were funded by new deposits, not by any underlying business activity. The Securities and Exchange Commission shut Profit Connect down in July 2021 with a restraining order and an asset freeze, according to Decrypt. At the time, the SEC estimated losses of up to $12 million from at least 277 investors. That figure represented roughly half the losses the Justice Department later established at trial. More than 90% of Profit Connect’s income, the commission found, came directly from investors. None of it was used to trade crypto.

The pitch was elaborate. Kovar told investors the company used AI software running on a supercomputer to mine cryptocurrency and verify transactions on other networks, The Block reported. He claimed Profit Connect held hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto reserves. He said investments were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. None of it was true.

The FDIC claim pulled a separate investigative arm into the case. “When investors were told their funds were FDIC-insured, it was a lie , plain and simple,” said Ryan Korner, Special Agent in Charge at the FDIC Office of Inspector General, whose office investigated alongside the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation. In practice, FDIC insurance covers bank deposits up to a statutory limit. It does not extend to cryptocurrency investments or private companies’ promises.

FBI Las Vegas Field Office Special Agent in Charge Christopher S. Delzotto offered a pointed assessment in a written statement: “the victims in this case thought they were engaged in revolutionary technological advancement, but it was merely a deception crafted by the falsehoods and trickery of Mr. Kovar.”

The DOJ announcement named only Brent Kovar. The SEC’s 2021 complaint told a wider story. According to that filing, he ran Profit Connect with his mother, Joy Kovar, then 86. The SEC said $1.2 million went into her personal account across ten equal transfers in under two months. A further $1.7 million was taken out through cash withdrawals, credit-card payments, and the purchase of a car.

This was not Kovar’s first encounter with securities regulators. In 2009, the SEC obtained a civil injunction against him and his father, Glenn Kovar, over a pump-and-dump scheme tied to a company called Skyway Global. That earlier case involved roughly $12 million in investor losses.

The conviction arrives during a broader surge in investment-fraud cases tied to digital assets. Investment fraud was the largest single category of cryptocurrency crime reported to the FBI in 2025, with losses of $11.37 billion, up 22% year over year. The Consumer Federation of America has estimated total U.S. losses, including unreported fraud, at $80.7 billion.

Restitution figures for the Profit Connect victims have not been publicly detailed. Whether Kovar plans to appeal was not stated in the DOJ announcement.

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#crypto #ponzi-scheme #DOJ #FDIC #AI-mining #fraud-conviction