According to U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the global Ponzi scheme that involved a 100 million dollar head trader has been pleaded guilty. He could face up to five years imprisonment. “The defendants allegedly misappropriated large sums of investors’ money to lease a Lamborghini, shop at Tiffany & Co., make a payment on a second home, and more.”
Empiresx’s Head Trader Pleads Guilty
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday that Joshua David Nicholas has pleaded guilty for his role as the “head trader” in a “global cryptocurrency investment fraud scheme that amassed approximately $100 million from investors.”
The 28-year-old Florida man admitted that he and others made numerous misrepresentations about Empiresx, a purported cryptocurrency platform, to investors, including promising “guaranteed” returns and claiming that Empiresx operated a trading bot that used artificial and human intelligence to maximize profitability for investors.
This is what the DOJ said:
Empiresx instead operated a Ponzi scheme, paying investors who were not yet in the system with funds from investors later on.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also indicted Nicholas and Empiresx founders Emerson Pires and Flavio Gonzalves of Brazil with violating registration and antifraud provisions of Securities Act of 1933 and Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The Securities Regulator noted Empiresx’s failure to register its investment program with SEC.
The bot was fake, Nicholas’ trading resulted in significant losses, and the defendants only transferred a small portion of investors’ funds to Empiresx’s brokerage account.
“Instead, the defendants allegedly misappropriated large sums of investors’ money to lease a Lamborghini, shop at Tiffany & Co., make a payment on a second home, and more,” the SEC described.
The Justice Department indicted all three men in June with “one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud.” Pires and Goncalves were also charged with “conspiracy to commit international money laundering.” According to the indictment, the pair laundered investors’ funds through a foreign-based cryptocurrency exchange.
Justice Department stated:
Nicholas has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced to a maximum of five years imprisonment for conspiracy to commit securitiesfraud.
Would you recommend that Nicholas spend five years behind bars for his part in the Empiresx cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme. Comment below to let us know your thoughts.
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