A 36-year-old man from Ostend has been fined €1,250 by the Bruges criminal court after opposition proceedings for fraud, after claiming he would invest victims’ money in bitcoin but making no investments.
According to the public prosecutor, Boris D. defrauded three victims between 2020 and 2023.
He persuaded them to invest in bitcoin through him for the amounts of €40,000, €21,000 and €16,000, though prosecutors said that in reality he did not make a single investment. The prosecution had asked for an 18-month prison sentence.
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When the case was first heard in April 2025, Boris D. failed to appear, though one of the victims did attend the hearing. The civil party said the defendant was living in a fantasy world and alleged that he had cheated around 75 victims out of millions of euros in total. “I am mainly here because he is still conning people. It has to stop,” the victim said.
On 14 May 2025, the court convicted him in absentia and sentenced him to 15 months in prison, half of it suspended. He was also ordered to pay a €2,400 fine and €40,000 in damages.
The defence then lodged an opposition, entitling the defendant to a new trial.
His lawyer, Jonas Van Oyen, said his client had set up a consultancy company with two associates. One of them had allegedly developed an app to predict movements in the crypto market. The lawyer said Boris D. recognised that he had acted wrongly and intended to compensate the civil party. He argued for a suspended sentence.
In his final statement, the defendant said there was enough money to repay the investments.
On Wednesday morning, the judge imposed a €1,250 fine instead. The court cited as a mitigating factor that the Ostend man had no previous convictions for property offences.
