A United States man has pleaded guilty in a federal court for promoting a multi-billion-dollar cryptocurrency fraud scheme that affected members of the Tongan diaspora.
Rodney “Bitcoin Rodney” Burton, 56, of Miami, entered a guilty plea on June 17 in the U.S. District Court in Maryland to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
According to a plea agreement released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, Burton conspired between June 2020 and January 2022 to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business that promoted HyperFund, a scheme that fraudulently obtained about $1.8 billion from investors worldwide while enriching its operators.
Prosecutors said HyperFund falsely marketed itself as a cryptocurrency investment platform, promising returns of 0.5 to 1 percent daily until investors doubled or tripled their initial funds. The scheme claimed these returns were generated through large-scale crypto-mining operations, which authorities said did not exist.
Burton allegedly controlled several companies presented as consulting firms but which operated as unlicensed money transmitters, personally receiving at least $7.85 million from the scheme, including funds linked to victims in Maryland.
By 2021, the platform had begun blocking investor withdrawals.
Sam Lee and Tongan Outreach
The development follows earlier scrutiny of Australian cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Lee (also known as Xue Lee), who has been identified by U.S. regulators as a central figure in the HyperFund/HyperVerse scheme.
U.S. prosecutors allege that Lee, a co-founder of HyperFund, helped operate the scheme by promoting investment contracts promising extraordinary returns, purportedly generated through large-scale cryptocurrency mining operations that investigators say did not exist.
Lee was introduced to the Tongan HyperFund investors through livestream sessions hosted by U.S.-based Tongan promoter Setaita Folau Tānaki in an apparent effort to build trust among participants amid early signs the scheme might collapse.
During the height of HyperFund’s promotion, the scheme gained considerable traction among Tongans, driven by aggressive recruitment efforts across diaspora communities. Its spread was not without controversy.
At the time, Tānaki claimed in livestreams that she was earning up to $200 a day through HyperFund. She also targeted construction and labour workers, encouraging them to invest up to $10,000 with promises of daily returns of around $50.
However, meetings attended by Tongans in the United States were, at times, marked by heated confrontations, including one livestreamed gathering in which a man directly challenged Tānaki over what he alleged were false or misleading claims about the programme.
Comments on subsequent livestream recordings revealed ongoing disputes, accusations, and growing scepticism among participants about the scheme’s legitimacy.
Tanaki Urges Halt to Investments
In March 2023, Tanaki appeared unexpectedly on a livestream urging members of the Tongan HyperFund community not to deposit any further money.
In the video, seen by Kaniva News, she appeared visibly concerned.
Although she did not explicitly state that the scheme had collapsed, her remarks conveyed the implication that HyperFund was no longer viable.
She indicated she was aware that some Tongans had deposited as much as $100,000 into the HyperFund scheme and subsequently lost those funds.
Lingering Impact, Lessons Unlearned
Burton’s case remains a cautionary reminder for Tonga. Despite the widespread controversy it generated at the time, concerns persist that the lessons were not fully learned, as similar schemes have continued to surface and attract participants within the Tongan community.
More recently, some Tongans have been drawn into comparable pyramid-style operations, including the BG Wealth Sharing scheme, which collapsed last month and reportedly cost participants thousands of dollars.
HyperFund also appears to have influenced a wave of similar operations within the Tongan community in New Zealand. In some cases, individuals went on to establish and promote their own schemes through social media platforms.
Among them was the Tongitupe pyramid scheme, which reportedly defrauded Tongan community members of approximately $13 million, according to FBI records. Its founder, Tilila Siola‘a Schumachai, is scheduled to appear in a United States court in March next year.
Her co-founder, ‘Ofa Siasau, was earlier ordered by a tribunal in Auckland to repay $26,250 to a victim of the scheme.
