A 39-year-old man from Lelystad has been sentenced to 38 months in prison for scamming clients out of millions through a pyramid bitcoin fraud, local broadcaster Flevoland reported.

Berry van M convinced at least 130 people to invest in a “bitcoin factory”. For €6,100, they could buy a bitcoin mining computer, which would be stored in a secure location, he told his victims. By connecting the computers, his company, Koinz Trading, would be able to generate a large amount of bitcoins. In reality, no such computers existed and not a single bitcoin was ever produced.

The fraud started in 2017 and took off when Van M appeared in an article in the Volkskrant which featured him with a mining computer he claimed to have developed himself.

He later admitted in court that it had been a lie “to distinguish myself from others and gain a better market position”.

As the money poured in, Van M spent it on a gambling spree, a Maserati, and holidays in Mallorca, totalling at least €1.3 million.

Doubts began to emerge about the existence of the mining computers in 2018, leading to a court case in 2023 when Van M was sentenced to 40 months in prison.

He appealed on the grounds he never meant to defraud anyone and only wanted to save what he could, but the judge said he never intended to deliver on his promises, and that after being declared bankrupt continued to sell his non-existent computers.

A plea by his lawyer to declare van M unsuitable for detention because of a severe allergy was rejected. His sentence was reduced by two months because of the time it took for the case to come to court. Van M was also told to pay his victims over €1.5 million in compensation.