New York entrepreneur Billy McFarland — founder of the disastrous Fyre Festival, which was billed as a luxury music event in the Bahamas earlier this year and endorsed by celebrities that included Kendall Jenner— was arrested Friday and has been charged with wire fraud.
“William McFarland promised a ‘life changing’ music festival, but in actuality delivered a disaster,” Manhattan acting US Attorney Joon Kim said. “McFarland allegedly presented fake documents to induce investors to put over a million dollars into his company and the fiasco called the Fyre Festival.”
When people flew to the festival site to see bands like Major Lazer, they were met with cheese sandwiches, FEMA tents, and other extremely un-posh things. The insanity eventually made its way to social media.
“McFarland truly put on a show, misrepresenting the financial status of his businesses in order to rake in lucrative investment deals,” William Sweeney, assistant director-in-charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office, said. “In the end, the very public failure of the Fyre Festival signaled that something just wasn’t right.”