Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged Taj Tarsha, the 34-year-old founder of NFT startup Few and Far, with securities fraud and wire fraud, each carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The case, filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and assigned to U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, accuses Tarsha of misappropriating more than $10 million raised from at least 67 investors starting in February 2022.
Investors funded Few and Far's planned decentralized NFT marketplace through Simple Agreements for Future Tokens, contracts that promised them a combined 95 million FAR tokens once the project launched. Prosecutors allege Tarsha began diverting the money almost immediately after the raise closed, funneling it into online gambling, speculative cryptocurrency trades, a loan on a Miami condominium, interior design services and expenses tied to a DJ hobby.
Beyond the personal spending, prosecutors say Tarsha concealed nearly $1 million in bonus and salary payments to himself while telling investors that any bonuses were strictly tied to milestones in the token's presale, according to court filings reviewed by other outlets covering the case. He is also accused of quietly dismissing most of the startup's employees while directing a single remaining contractor to keep the marketplace looking functional to outside observers.
An audit that came too late
The alleged misuse first surfaced in a June 2023 internal audit, roughly 16 months after the fundraising closed. Few and Far nonetheless pushed ahead and launched the FAR token in May 2024, but it was, in prosecutors' telling, effectively worthless from the start and stopped trading soon after. Tarsha was arrested on June 6, and CoinDesk said it contacted him by email for comment but had not received a response by publication time.
Part of a broader enforcement push
The case adds to a steady run of SDNY securities and wire fraud actions against crypto and NFT founders accused of raising capital under one set of promises and spending it under another. The specific figures in the indictment, a $10 million raise, a roughly two-year gap between fundraising and internal discovery, and a token that launched only after the alleged misconduct had already occurred, mirror a pattern prosecutors have flagged repeatedly in similar SAFT-based fundraising cases across the sector.
