Zimbardi Deported From Fiji and Indicted in the U.S. After Three Years of Regulatory Warnings

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California’s financial regulator called Edward Zimbardi’s cryptocurrency investment program a Ponzi scheme in writing on June 28, 2023. The federal indictment that finally charged him with wire fraud and money laundering did not arrive until July 8, 2026, three years later, after three more legal actions against the same conduct.

Zimbardi, 59, of Flowery Branch, Georgia, was deported from Fiji on August 14 after fleeing there in July 2025, and was arraigned in Los Angeles three days later on the federal indictment: 25 counts in total, 12 of wire fraud, 12 of money laundering and one of conspiracy. His is not the only crypto Ponzi case working through U.S. courts this year: Goliath Ventures founder Christopher Delgado admitted this year to running a $250 million version of the same scheme.

A Regulator Called This a Ponzi Scheme in 2023

Prosecutors allege Zimbardi ran The Crypto Program from June 2022 to August 2023, promising investors a guaranteed 25 percent monthly return on cryptocurrency sent to wallets he secretly controlled. More than $165 million came in from thousands of people. He allegedly gambled $34 million of it away on foreign currency trades and spent at least $10 million on personal expenses.

The scheme collapsed in August 2023, but California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation had already reached the same conclusion in writing. Its Desist and Refrain order, dated that June, found Zimbardi’s $550 investment packages were unregistered securities run as a Ponzi scheme, with investor money secretly diverted to an offshore forex broker. The order also recorded Zimbardi’s own admission that he had previously run investment scams costing victims tens of millions of dollars, and that repaying those earlier victims was part of his motive this time. He had pleaded guilty to eight counts of felony theft in Georgia in 1997 and served about 17 months in prison, the order noted.

The Rebrands, the Arrest and the Lawsuit In Between

California’s order did not stop him. The Crypto Program became Amsys within months, and Georgia’s securities division later listed Amsys, AdMediaSpend, MacrogroupX, Forex 50/50 PAMM and IMGFX among the names he operated under, according to a state penalty order issued in February 2026.

Georgia’s own securities regulator confirmed an active investigation into Zimbardi by February 2024. The following month, Dutch authorities arrested him on suspicion of money laundering; the Netherlands’ Public Prosecutor’s Office later said the case was transferred to a foreign authority, and no Dutch conviction followed. In July 2025, a British Columbia investor, LeeAnn Harper, filed a federal racketeering and fraud suit against him in the Northern District of Georgia, saying she alone had been defrauded of more than $366,000; a default judgment was later entered against him. That same month, Zimbardi learned of the FBI investigation and fled to Fiji, where he stayed for over a year.

A Penalty in February, an Indictment in July

Georgia’s civil penalty came down on February 19, 2026: $500,000 each against Zimbardi, IMG and CryptoProgram, for a combined $1.5 million, and a bar on working as a broker or investment adviser in the state. Less than five months later, the federal indictment followed. Cases like this rarely close quickly once they reach federal court, either: the Justice Department is only now moving to end its case against BitClub Network’s founders, a $722 million crypto Ponzi scheme first uncovered back in 2019.

Zimbardi is presumed innocent of the federal charges unless and until prosecutors prove them at trial in the Northern District of Georgia. What the record shows plainly is that none of the four actions that came before the indictment, not California’s order, not Georgia’s investigation, not the Dutch arrest, not Harper’s lawsuit, stopped him from raising money under a new name. The criminal case is the one meant to.