Wolf Capital founder hit with 5-year sentence, $1M+ forfeiture over $9.4M Ponzi scheme

A US court has sentenced Travis Ford, the founder and head trader behind Wolf Capital Crypto Trading LLC, to five years in prison.

According to the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Ford must also forfeit more than $1 million and repay over $170,000 in restitution.

Fraudulent promises land Wolf Capital’s founder in trouble

From January to August 2023, Ford offered his investors returns of 1-2% per day, an annualized rate of approximately 547%, through “the company’s website and other social media and internet-based promotion activities” on platforms such as Telegram and Discord.

Ford reportedly lied about the company’s financial status, diverted funds into personal accounts, used some for personal expenses, and also incurred large amounts of trading losses.

While all of these were happening, US prosecutors claim that Ford was still soliciting funds from existing and new investors.

By mid-2023, however, the scheme began to crumble as investors began reporting delayed withdrawals and numbers in their accounts that didn’t add up. The patchwork gave out in August 2023 when Ford shut down the platform. Ford’s victims promptly hit state and federal agencies with a wave of complaints, which led to the beginning of Ford’s problems.

In his plea deal, Ford acknowledged lying to investors even after he and his co-conspirators had already siphoned their money away. “I made that and other similar false statements with the intent to induce individuals to invest their money with me and Wolf Capital and to remain invested,” he said, according to court documents.

The DOJ added that Ford knew the advertised returns were impossible to achieve. Still, the operation pressed on, raising $9.4 million from about 2,800 people.

In reality, investigators say the scheme operated like a classic Ponzi structure, with new deposits used to prop up the illusion of success while funds flowed to Ford and other insiders.

Ford faces 5 years of jail time

The case, which has been actively pursued by the DOJ’s Fraud Section and the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Criminal Investigations Group, saw Ford plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in January 2025. The USPIS is reportedly still carrying out investigations on the case.

At sentencing, the court hit Ford with a 60-month prison term on top of the over $1 million in repayments that the government imposed on the accused.

With Ford now sentenced, the focus shifts to what his conviction means for those who lost their capital in the investment. The restitution and forfeiture orders may be some sort of salve for the victims of Ford’s scheme, but US authorities acknowledge that full recovery remains unlikely for many of the individuals who trusted Wolf Capital with their money.

The DOJ has been actively prosecuting crypto-related Ponzi schemes, with one similar case being that of David Kagel, a disbarred California attorney, who reportedly defrauded his victims of about $9.5 million. He was sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to his role in the scam and was also ordered to pay around $14 million in restitution late last year.