Damian Williams, the USA Lawyer for the Southern District of New York, introduced right now the responsible plea of EDDY ALEXANDRE, the chief of a purported cryptocurrency and international change (“foreign exchange”) buying and selling platform referred to as EminiFX, who solicited greater than $248 million in investments from tens of hundreds of particular person traders after making false representations in reference to the EminiFX buying and selling platform. U.S. District Choose John P. Cronan accepted the defendant’s responsible plea.
U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams mentioned: “Eddy Alexandre admitted right now to luring traders to his cryptocurrency funding rip-off by fabricating weekly returns of at the very least 5%. In actuality, Alexandre failed to speculate a considerable portion of this traders’ cash and even used some funds for private purchases. Alexandre’s rip-off brought on traders to lose hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, and this case ought to function yet one more warning to cryptocurrency executives that the Southern District of New York is carefully watching and able to prosecute any and all misconduct within the crypto markets.”
In response to the allegations within the Indictment and different filings and statements made in court docket:
From in or about September 2021, as much as and together with in or about Could 2022, ALEXANDRE operated EminiFX, Inc. (“EminiFX”), a purported funding platform that ALEXANDRE based, and for which he solicited greater than $248 million in investments from tens of hundreds of particular person traders. ALEXANDRE marketed EminiFX as an funding platform by way of which traders would earn passive revenue by way of automated investments in cryptocurrency and foreign currency trading. ALEXANDRE supplied his traders “assured” excessive funding returns utilizing new know-how that he claimed was secret. Particularly, ALEXANDRE falsely represented to traders that they might double their cash inside 5 months of investing by incomes at the very least 5% weekly returns on their funding utilizing a “Robo-Advisor Assisted account” to conduct buying and selling. ALEXANDRE referred to this know-how as his “commerce secret” and refused to inform traders what the know-how was. Every week EminiFX’s web site falsely represented to traders that they’d earned at the very least 5% on their funding, which they may withdraw or re-invest.
In reality and in reality, and as ALEXANDRE nicely knew, EminiFX didn’t earn 5% weekly returns for its traders. ALEXANDRE didn’t even make investments a considerable portion of the investor funds entrusted to him, and ALEXANDRE sustained hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in losses on the restricted portion of funds that he did make investments, which he didn’t open up to his traders. As an alternative of utilizing traders’ funds as he had promised, ALEXANDRE additionally misdirected at the very least roughly $14,700,000 to his private checking account. For instance, ALEXANDRE used $155,000 in investor funds to buy a BMW automobile for himself and spent a further $13,000 of investor funds on automobile funds, together with to Mercedes Benz.
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ALEXANDRE, 50, of Valley Stream, New York, pled responsible to 1 rely of commodities fraud and agreed to pay forfeiture within the quantity of $248,829,276.73, in addition to restitution in an quantity to be specified by the Courtroom. The offense of commodities fraud carries a most sentence of 10 years in jail.
The utmost potential sentence on this case is prescribed by Congress and is offered right here for informational functions solely, as any sentencing of the defendant will probably be decided by the decide. Sentencing earlier than Choose Cronan is scheduled for July 12, 2023, at 4:00 p.m.
Mr. Williams praised the investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and in addition thanked the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee, which introduced a separate civil motion.
This case is being dealt with by the Workplace’s Securities and Commodities Fraud Activity Pressure. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicholas Folly and Jared Lenow are in command of the prosecution.
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