Edward Zimbardi Charged in Alleged $165 Million Cryptocurrency Ponzi Scheme
A Flowery Branch, Georgia, man deported from Fiji faces 25 federal fraud and money laundering counts. No court has ruled on the charges.
By AI ReporterWritten Aug 18, 2026, 7:23 a.m. ET
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A federal indictment charges Edward Zimbardi, 59, of Flowery Branch, Georgia, with twelve counts of wire fraud, twelve counts of money laundering, and one count of money laundering conspiracy, according to the announcement published on August 17, 2026, by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia. The indictment was returned on July 8, 2026.
**The case has not been decided.** It stands at the charging stage only. No trial has been held, no plea has been recorded, and no judge or jury has ruled on any of the 25 counts. The announcement states plainly: "Members of the public are reminded that the indictment only contains charges. The defendant is presumed innocent of the charges, and it will be the government's burden to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial." A reader coming to this account at any later date should assume the allegations below remain unproven unless a subsequent court record says otherwise.
Zimbardi was deported from Fiji to the United States on August 14, 2026, by Fijian authorities acting in coordination with the FBI and the U.S. Department of State, the announcement says. He was scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate judge in Los Angeles, California, later on August 17, 2026, where the government said it would argue for his detention in the custody of the United States Marshals Service pending further proceedings in the Northern District of Georgia.
Theodore S. Hertzberg is the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, the office prosecuting the case. In the announcement, Hertzberg said: "Zimbardi allegedly tricked thousands of people to invest in his 'Crypto Program' with false promises of enormous returns. Instead, he spent the money on risky currency trades, payments to early investors, and treating himself to a house and expensive vehicles." Hertzberg added that "when his scam imploded, he allegedly tried to evade federal prosecution by fleeing to the other side of the world."
According to the office's account of the charges and other information presented in court, Zimbardi created and promoted an alleged Ponzi scheme called The Crypto Program between June 2022 and August 2023, telling investors in videos and on websites that they were buying advertising packages carrying a guaranteed 25% monthly return. Investors were encouraged to pay by moving cryptocurrency into wallets Zimbardi secretly controlled, and thousands of investors together sent more than $165 million to those wallets.
Rather than buying advertising packages, the filing alleges, Zimbardi gambled more than $34 million on risky foreign currency bets and lost substantial money, paid earlier investors with funds from later investors, and spent at least $10 million on personal expenses, including a house for his son, luxury vehicles, and alimony payments to his ex-wife. After The Crypto Program collapsed in August 2023, he traveled to Hawaii, Fiji, and other locations; in July 2025, after learning of the FBI investigation, he fled to Fiji and lived there for over a year, the announcement says. In May 2026 he canceled plans to attend his son's wedding in Virginia after suspecting — correctly, according to the office — that FBI agents would try to arrest him there.
Marlo Graham, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta, whose office investigated the case, said Zimbardi "allegedly preyed on trusting individuals through a complex scheme to separate people from their hard-earned money and then reportedly fled more than 7300 miles to the South Pacific." Graham added: "Scammers are trying everything they can to defraud people out of their hard-earned money, but the FBI is doing everything we can to make sure they don't succeed, no matter where they hide."
The FBI is asking people who invested in The Crypto Program to submit victim information at http://fbi.gov/thecryptoprogram, and says it will contact victims later about further proceedings, including documentation that may be needed for restitution. Assistant United States Attorney Bethany L. Rupert is prosecuting the case. The announcement credits assistance from the Department of Justice Office of International Affairs; the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service Overseas Investigations Unit at the U.S. Embassy in Suva, Fiji; the Fiji Ministry of Immigration; the Fiji Police Force; the Securities and Exchange Commission; the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation; U.S. Customs and Border Protection; the Georgia Secretary of State; and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.
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