Former Monero maintainer Riccardo ‘Fluffypony’ Spagni to surrender for South Africa extradition

By
Cointelegraph By Turner Wright
-
0
64

Riccardo Spagni, the former caretaker of the privacy currency also known as Fluffypony, faces extradition to South Africa months after his arrest by U.S. authorities.

In Thursday’s court case for the Central District of Tennessee, Magistrate Judge Alistair Newbern ordered Spagni will surrender to U.S. marshals on July 5 for extradition to South Africa. He is said to do face 378 allegations related to allegations of fraud and forgery between 2009 and 2011 at a company called Cape Cookies.

U.S. authorities arrested Spagni in Nashville in July 2021 at the request of the South African government, keeping him in custody until September. The court documents suggest allowing Spagni to be in the United States during the Independence Day holiday weekend before being taken to Africa early Tuesday. None of the allegations in South Africa relate to Spagni’s time working on Currency (XMR), for which he was the main caretaker until December 2019.

Related: Privacy Coins Rise – Will Regulatory Pressure Stop Their Star Run?

Spagni, who posts on Twitter under the handle Fluffypony, has been involved in the crypto space since 2011. Since his arrest in the United States, he has tweeted about his desire to return to South Africa to “deal with this issue” in connection with the fraud allegations. :

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets, the price of XMR has decreased by 8% in the last 24 hours, reaching $ 110 at the time of publication. As with many cryptocurrencies in the current bear market, the price of the privacy currency has dropped significantly in the last 30 days – about 46% from more than $ 206 on May 31st.