‘Pearl’ Cryptocurrency Creator Pleads Guilty to Tax Crimes

1. 4/6/23, 11:20 AM ‘Pearl’ Cryptocurrency Creator Pleads Guilty to Tax Crimes
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-tax-report/pearl-cryptocurrency-creator-pleads-guilty-to-tax-crimes?context=search&index=0 1/2
Daily Tax Report ®
April 5, 2023, 6:41 PM
‘Pearl’ Cryptocurrency Creator Pleads
Guilty to Tax Crimes
By Aysha Bagchi
Tokens creator allegedly omitted millions in income
DOJ said misconduct also included misleading investors
A cryptocurrency creator pleaded guilty to filing a tax document with information he didn’t believe was
true, and to willfully failing to file a tax return.
Amir Bruno Elmaani entered the guilty pleas Wednesday at the US District Court for the Southern District
of New York. The federal government alleged Elmaani committed the crimes as part of broader
misconduct—including failing to report income he earned by minting new cryptocurrency “Pearl” tokens
for his personal use, despite telling investors the number of tokens was fixed.
In total, Elmaani failed to report millions of dollars in income to the government, according to the Justice
Department’s charging document.
“Mr. Elmaani has accepted responsibility for his actions and looks forward to putting this chapter of his
life behind him, and moving on to the next one,” said Todd Spodek of the Spodek Law Group, who
represented Elmaani, in an email to Bloomberg Law.
The government said the crimes arose as part of Elmaani’s creation of the Oyster Protocol cryptocurrency
project under his alias name, “Bruno Block.” After the project’s management alerted the public to
Elmaani’s actions, the tokens’ price plummeted, the government said.
The court scheduled Elmaani’s sentencing for Sept. 11.
The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case is United States v. Elmaani, S.D.N.Y., No. 1:20-cr-661, 4/5/23.
To contact the reporter on this story: Aysha Bagchi in Washington at
abagchi@bloombergtax.com

2. 4/6/23, 11:20 AM ‘Pearl’ Cryptocurrency Creator Pleads Guilty to Tax Crimes
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-tax-report/pearl-cryptocurrency-creator-pleads-guilty-to-tax-crimes?context=search&index=0 2/2
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Patrick Ambrosio at
PAmbrosio@bloombergindustry.com; Maya Earls at mearls@bloomberglaw.com
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