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Feds investigating Fyre Festival
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 22 May 2017
Bored of all the civil litigation that has been amassing around the disastrous Fyre Festival? Well, how about the potential of some criminal action in relation to the big luxury non-event? Yeah, that sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
According to the New York Times, Fyre Festival is now under criminal investigation by the Southern District Of New York and the FBI. The newspaper cites one source as saying that the company behind the festival was being investigated over allegations of possible mail, wire and securities fraud. The investigation is being conducted by the US Attorney’s Office and is being led by a prosecutor assigned to the complex frauds and cybercrime unit.
As previously reported, in a leaked conference call between the Fyre Festival founders, Ja Rule and Billy McFarland, and their staff – in which McFarland announced that no one was going to get paid – one employee noted rumours that at least one of her colleagues had been contacted by the FBI. “Should we be concerned about the FBI, Billy?” she asked her boss, who replied: “That’s really more of an individual thing”.
Ja Rule and McFarland are now on the receiving end of a flurry of lawsuits in relation to the cancelled festival, from both disappointed ticket holders and unpaid suppliers. And the New York Times report into the whole Fyre debacle name-checks a number of other aggrieved individuals who may as yet file their own litigation. Though whether Team Fyre will actually need to defend criminal charges too remains to seen.
