Fyre Festival founder arrested by FBI on wire fraud charges tonight

The gift story that keep on giving, the founder of the Fyre Festival, Bill McFarland, was arrested by the FBI tonight in New York City. He is expected to appear in court tomorrow on one charge of wire fraud which carries a possible 20 year sentence. The charge is listed as “a scheme to defraud investors” and “misrepresenting financial information about his company, Fyre Media.”

Joon H. Kim, the acting United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement:

“McFarland allegedly presented fake documents to induce investors to put over a million dollars into his company and the fiasco called the Fyre Festival.”

At press time, festival co-owner and founder Ja Rule was not under arrest per his attorney.

Per Friday’s announcement from prosecutors, in 2016 and 2017, Mr. McFarland was able to convince a minimum of two people to invest approximately $1.2 million in Fyre Media and another company, using inflated revenue and income numbers. Also the complaint states that Mr. McFarland claimed that Fyre Media had earned millions of dollars from thousands of artist bookings made through Fyre’s system. “In reality, Fyre Media earned less than $60,000” over that period per the US District Attorney’s office.