Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Million Dollar Fake Company - The Ray Trapani / Centra Tech story

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

The Ray Trapani case centers around the fraudulent cryptocurrency startup Centra Tech, which he co-founded alongside Sohrab Sharma and Robert Farkas. In 2017, the trio launched a fake ICO (Initial Coin Offering), ultimately scamming investors out of over $25 million. Their scheme gained credibility after being promoted by celebrities like Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled, both of whom were later fined by the SEC.

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and bro really wants to be rich. And he's always cooking up some kind of new scheme to make that happen. Like he's stealing prescription drugs and selling them for a while. Then he and his friends borrow some money and they start a luxury car rental business. And that business does pretty well, but they're young and kind of dumb and pretty quick. Quickly, they blow through all their profits and their business fails. And that is when Ray is back to square one and now he needs a new hustle to make money. And one day in 2017, one of Ray's friends, this guy, who will call Sorbet, Sorbet, gets

a crazy idea. They want to create a debit card that lets you access your cryptocurrency. That way you can instantly buy stuff with your Bitcoin when you're like out at the store or something. a debit card for crypto? Honestly, it's not a terrible idea. And so they're going to create a whole fake company and attach it to a cryptocurrency, like a shit coin. However, Ray, Sorbet, and their other friend, this guy, Farkas, they have several problems with this plan. One, they know nothing about crypto, nothing about Bitcoin or anything about that space. And two, the very specific technology for a crypto debit card, it either doesn't exist.

or these guys just don't have access to it. Not in 2017. But whatever, these guys just want to be rich, and they're going to do whatever it takes to make that happen. And so they come up with this whole ass scam. First, they set up a company called Centrotech, completely fake and made up. They make a company website and they make themselves the employees.

Here's actually a picture of the three of them all dressed up, like they know what they're doing. Then, to make themselves appear more credible, they create fake LinkedIn profiles for themselves, claiming that they're all Harvard graduates. They even make up a fake CEO of this fake company, like they literally Google the words, Old White Guy, and they find a random picture, and they post that picture of that guy as the CEO. And so all of this looks legit, and now all they got to do is promote it. So they all go into crypto message boards and chat rooms and they start hyping up their fake company hoping to get people to invest. Here's the thing though.

Some people do actually invest in this company. Not a ton, but you know, it's something. But about a month or so in, suddenly, pow, their company gets a random endorsement from a somewhat known crypto guru. And overnight, kaboom, their company blows the fuck up. And suddenly all kinds of people are investing. And they now have millions of dollars invested in their fake company based on a technology that they don't have. But now, there's a real buzz around what they're claiming Centra Tech is going to do.

So, they just run with it. They get a legit office space so they don't have to work out of their bedrooms anymore. They hire like 50 other employees to come work for them. They get these fake CENTRA cards made to use as like promotional materials, like a proof of concept. They even hire celebrities to endorse this card. Like here's Floyd Mayweather endorsing it. They get DJ Khalid to promote it. And so this builds even more hype for their company and makes them look even more legit.

Now, what are they going to do with all this hype for their company considering their product is fake? They're going to try and raise even more investment money. And this is where they start selling Centracoin, their shit coin, to the public. And so, bam, their coin goes live, and it's selling fast because they've been generating a lot of hype. And soon, Ray and his friends have raised tens of millions of dollars. And now, with all this new money, they got to start spending it. And so Ray is out here buying new tailored suits. He's at the mall, shopping every day, he gets a new luxury car.

He's always, like, carrying around tons of cash on himself for some reason, I guess just to, like, show it off. Meanwhile, the guys, they're all promising their investors like, yeah, don't worry, we're going to get these crypto debit cards out by Christmas. But again, they don't have crypto debit cards because these guys don't have the technology. But they still don't seem to care. They keep spending money because I guess they don't think they're ever going to get caught. Until. After all this hype these guys have been getting. A reporter for the New York Times starts paying attention to them.

And so he's doing his research and he finds some of their Instagram accounts. And I don't know what they were doing in all their Instagram photos, probably like partying or stunting in their new whip. But whatever it was, this causes this reporter to say, yeah, these guys definitely didn't go to Harvard. And he starts thinking maybe their company isn't legit. And so he wants to hear from the CEO, of this company. But remember, the picture of the CEO on the website is just a random photo

Ray and the guys found when they googled old white guy. And so anyway, the reporter reaches out to Ray and the guys and he's asking them all kinds of questions and they're like bullshitting him and he wants to speak to the CEO. And they're making up excuses and they're like, ah, he's busy. But with all this sudden pushback, Ray and the guys know that eventually people are going to realize their CEO is made up. And then everyone will know their whole company is a fraud. And so they decide to kill off their fake CEO and pretend that he just like died in a car crash. Like they put together a whole press release saying that Michael Edwards, our talented CEO, died in a car accident. And I guess that keeps the critics at bay for a while. But now the guys have a new problem. They got to find a new

fake CEO. And so they take a picture of Ray's grandpa and they put it up on the website and they're like, yeah, this guy is now our CEO. But like immediately, some people start looking into it and they look at Ray's Facebook page and they find pictures of Ray and his grandpa. And they're like, the CEO of that company isn't a real CEO? They just used a picture of Ray's grandpa. But whatever, I mean, Ray and the guys still don't seem phased because they just keep hustling. They get a bunch of their employees to start building a fake app that they can use in presentations like, hey, look, our product really works. And through that, they get even more people to invest in their company. I think they actually get like 15 million more. But then, finally, it all starts to go south. Because that New York Times reporter, his article

comes out about the company and kaboom it blows the up and it like brings up their old arrest records and run-ins with the law and it just makes them look you know not so good and around this time is when the SEC the Securities Exchange Commission

notifies the guys that their company Centrotech is now officially under federal investigation and I guess from here the guys panic because within a month most of the company's employees are laid off Also, the guys are like fighting amongst one another, and they start draining all the money out of the company's bank accounts. But eventually, the law does catch up to them, and bam, Ray gets arrested.

Here's his mugshot. And of course, the other guys, they get arrested too. And now Ray, he ends up pleading guilty, and he takes a plea deal, and he flips on the other two. And so Sorbet, he gets sentenced to eight years in prison, and Farcas, he gets sentenced to one year in prison. While Ray, because he flipped on the others, he gets no prison time. That is wild.