A former employee of investment bank Deutsche Bank has been charged in an indictment that opened on Tuesday, April 11, 2023 with misappropriating funds from investors he lured with promises of huge profits from cryptocurrency trading.

Rashawn Russell, 27, of Brooklyn, solicited investments from friends and colleagues but used the funds for gambling and other personal expenses, federal prosecutors said. According to the indictment, Russell told potential investors he was a licensed broker who worked in investment banking and could help them earn large returns on the cryptocurrency funds he ran.

Prosecutors said Russell transferred some of the funds to trading accounts but took the rest, and sent investors false documentation about how their money was performing.

Russell, who was arrested Monday in Brooklyn after being charged in closed indictment last Thursday, faces one count of wire fraud for a scheme that prosecutors say ran from November 2020 to August 2022.

According to the indictment, Russell was an investment banker from July 2018 to November 2021 at a financial institution not named in the documents. His LinkedIn profile states he became a Deutsche Bank investment banking analyst in July 2018 and was promoted to associate in July 2020.

“Russell turned requests for crypto investments into a scheme to defraud large numbers of investors,” said US attorney in Brooklyn, Breon Peace, in a statement, quoted from Yahoo Finance, Thursday (13/4/2023).

Deutsche Bank said in a statement though it did not comment on the ongoing legal proceedings.

Deutsche Bank regularly supports law enforcement and regulatory oversight efforts, including responding appropriately to and cooperating with official investigations and processes.