A federal jury in Nevada has convicted Las Vegas businessman Brent C. Kovar of running a $24 million cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme through his company Profit Connect, closing a case that federal regulators first flagged more than four years ago.
According to a press release, tied to the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the 58-year-old was found guilty on 11 counts of wire fraud, two counts of mail fraud, and two counts of money laundering following a nine-day trial. He now faces a statutory maximum sentence of 280 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on November 30 before U.S. District Judge Jennifer A. Dorsey.
How Profit Connect allegedly sold itself
From late 2017 until July 2021, Kovar owned and operated Profit Connect, marketed to retail investors under the entity name Profit Connect Wealth Services. Federal prosecutors said he told investors the Las Vegas-based company was running “artificial intelligence software on a supercomputer” to mine cryptocurrency and verify blockchain transactions, and that it was profitable enough to pay a fixed annual rate of return between 15% and 30%.
Kovar also pitched a “100% money back guarantee” and told investors that the company was backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency reserves, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Some victims were led to believe the deposits were protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, a claim the FDIC Office of Inspector General later flagged as false when the case was first charged in February 2025.
To make the operation appear legitimate, Kovar built out a promotional stack that included a company website, a YouTube video and a PowerPoint presentation. He also leased a sales office and a warehouse presented to investors as a data center, prosecutors said.
Where the money actually went
The government’s case, laid out in the original DOJ indictment and reiterated at trial, was that none of the mining, none of the AI trading, and none of the reserves were real.
“Kovar knew his company was not profitable, had no reserves, did not and could not pay the fixed rates of return to investors, and had no legitimate means for the money-back guarantee,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in its release. Instead of running a crypto mining business, prosecutors said Kovar used incoming investor funds to keep the operation alive, buy gifts for employees, purchase a house for himself and pay earlier investors under the guise of mining proceeds, a textbook Ponzi structure.
In total, prosecutors said Kovar fraudulently obtained about $24 million from at least 400 investors. Money moved through wire transfers, checks sent by U.S. mail, and monetary transactions exceeding $10,000 that were derived from unlawful activity, which formed the basis of the money laundering counts.
What the jury decided
Kovar was originally indicted in February 2025 on 12 counts of wire fraud, three counts of mail fraud, and three counts of money laundering, exposing him to a theoretical maximum of 330 years in prison and a $4.5 million fine. After the nine-day trial, the jury returned guilty verdicts on 11 wire fraud counts, two mail fraud counts and two money laundering counts, which brings the current statutory maximum to 280 years.
The case was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation, the FBI’s Las Vegas Field Office, and the FDIC Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joshua Brister and James Gaeta prosecuted the case.
“Today’s verdict reflects the seriousness of Brent Kovar’s scheme and the impact it had on hundreds of investors,” IRS Criminal Investigation’s San Francisco Field Office Acting Special Agent in Charge David Lowe said in the announcement. He added that operators who build businesses on “false guarantees, fabricated profits and nonexistent reserves” erode trust in the financial system and leave victims with real losses.
FBI Las Vegas Special Agent in Charge Christopher S. Delzotto described the victims as investors who thought they were joining a technological breakthrough but were instead pulled into a deception “crafted by the falsehoods and trickery of Mr. Kovar.”
Any final sentence will be set by Judge Dorsey after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors, and it is likely to fall well below the theoretical 280-year maximum, which reflects consecutive statutory caps rather than a realistic Guidelines calculation.
The SEC got there first
The criminal case did not come out of nowhere. In July 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed an emergency action in the same District of Nevada and obtained a temporary restraining order and asset freeze against Profit Connect Wealth Services, Brent Kovar, and his mother Joy I. Kovar.
The SEC’s complaint, unsealed on July 16, 2021, alleged that since at least May 2018 the defendants had raised more than $12 million from at least 277 retail investors while assuring them that their money would be traded in securities and cryptocurrencies based on the recommendations of an “artificial intelligence supercomputer.”
Profit Connect claimed the supercomputer consistently generated enormous returns, which the company said allowed it to guarantee investors 20% to 30% per year with monthly compounding.
Notably, the SEC described Brent Kovar as a “recidivist,” a signal that regulators considered his conduct part of a pattern rather than a one-off lapse.
Wider context: AI-wrapped Ponzi schemes are having a moment
The Kovar verdict lands in a year when U.S. authorities have been unusually active against crypto investment fraud, particularly schemes that dress up classic Ponzi mechanics with buzzwords like “AI,” “supercomputer” and “algorithmic trading.”
Earlier this month, The Crypto Times reported on the case of a Georgia man charged in a $165 million crypto Ponzi scheme after being deported from Fiji, with prosecutors alleging he ran an “advertising package” investment scam offering guaranteed 25% monthly returns. In July, the Florida-based CEO of Goliath Ventures Inc. pleaded guilty in a $250 million cryptocurrency fraud case, and a senior promoter of the IcomTech scheme was recently sentenced to 71 months in a related crackdown.
Federal reporting shows why authorities are moving harder. According to DOJ figures cited in an April seizure of 503 crypto scam websites, reported losses from cryptocurrency investment fraud rose from $3.96 billion in 2023 to $5.8 billion in 2024 and jumped again to more than $7.2 billion in 2025.
For victims of Profit Connect, the November 30 sentencing will determine whether Kovar is sent away for what functions as a life term. Any restitution will depend on the assets prosecutors can still trace, a challenge that has become familiar in cases where investor money was routed through Ponzi payouts, personal spending, and shell entities long before regulators arrived.
Also Read: Binance’s Yi He, CZ Warn of WeChat Groups Promoting Scams
