18.08.2025
2 min
552
A US court has sentenced Charles O. Park III, known as “CP3O,” to one year in prison for a fraudulent cryptomining scheme in which he defrauded cloud computing providers of $3.5 million, obtaining nearly $1 million in cryptocurrencies.
Federal prosecutors have proven that in 2021, Park, using aliases and “front” companies such as CP3O LLC and MultiMillionaire LLC, created accounts on various cloud services, bypassing payment and fraudulently obtaining huge computing resources.
On these servers, he mined Monero (XMR), Ether (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC), presenting the activity as an educational project for “10,000 students simultaneously.” Park evaded debt collection requests from ISPs using fabricated explanations, and laundered cryptocurrency profits through exchanges, online payment services, an NFT marketplace in New York, and bank accounts.
He later spent the cash on a luxurious Mercedes-Benz S AMG, jewelry, and business-class flights. He also tried to establish himself as a “crypto-influencer” by posting tips on YouTube called “MultiMillionaire Mentality.”
Cryptojacking is one of the most common schemes used by cybercriminals, in which someone else’s computing power is used to mine cryptocurrency without the owner’s consent. In Park’s case, it’s not about infecting users’ computers, but about large-scale fraud with cloud providers’ resources.
Previously, the US Attorney’s Office has repeatedly warned about the growth of such schemes, which cause millions in losses to IT companies. In this case, the sentence — just one year in prison — is considered relatively lenient, as the defendant could have received up to 20 years.
Although Park’s sentence was less severe than expected, the case was illustrative: even if criminals try to disguise cryptojacking as a legitimate business, law enforcement agencies are able to trace the scheme and prove money laundering. This is another signal for the industry to strengthen customer control and detect suspicious activity in cloud services.
