United States v. Sohrab Sharma et al. Remission Administration

Update: Notices of Incomplete Petitions for Remission are being mailed and emailed to Petitioners with defective petitions starting on September 13, 2023. The deadline to respond to these deficiencies is October 13, 2023. Please email the Remission Administrator at info@centratechremission.com for questions if you received a Notice.

The United States is initiating a Remission process to return forfeited money to eligible victims of frauds perpetrated by Robert Joseph Farkas, Sohrab Sharma, Raymond Trapni, and their company Centra Tech (collectively referred to as “Centra Tech” or "the Defendants"). The Remission process is governed by the Code of Federal Regulations at 28 C.F.R. Part 9 (the “Regulations”) and overseen by the Department of Justice’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section. The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) hired Epiq Class Action and Claims Solutions, Inc. (“Epiq”) to serve as the Remission Administrator for this matter. The Petition for Remission Form (“Petition”) must be submitted in order to be potentially eligible to share in the distribution from the forfeited assets.

From approximately July 23, 2017, through October 5, 2017, Centra Tech claimed to offer cryptocurrency-related financial products including a debit card that allowed users to spend cryptocurrency at stores that accepted MasterCard and Visa. The Defendants solicited investors to purchase unregistered securities in the form of digital tokens issued by Centra Tech (“CTR Tokens”) through a so-called “initial coin offering” or “ICO.” The representations made to help secure these investments, however, were false. The Defendants fabricated Centra Tech executive team members, did not have appropriate state licenses, and did not have relationships with financial services providers.

Based in part on these false representations, victim ICO investors provided millions of dollars’ worth of digital funds in investments for the purchase of CTR Tokens. Many CTR Tokens were subsequently traded on the secondary market while the Defendants continued to misrepresent Centra Tech’s qualifications and capabilities. On April 2, 2018, two of the Defendants were publicly charged with violations of federal criminal law by a Criminal Complaint filed in the Southern District of New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filed a civil complaint in the Southern District of New York. Subsequently, the price of CTR Tokens declined to nearly zero.

If you purchased unregistered securities in the form of digital tokens issued by Centra Tech (CTR Tokens) between July 23, 2017, and April 2, 2018, including through a so-called “initial coin offering” or “ICO” from approximately July 23, 2017, through October 5, 2017, you are potentially eligible to file a Petition for Remission. To file your Petition for Remission Form, click the button below.