A $300M Ponzi Scheme That Targeted Latinos Falsely Claimed to Buy Crypto, SEC Says

The
U.S.
Securities
and
Exchange
Commission
sued
17
individuals
tied
to
an
alleged
Ponzi
scheme
that
took
in
$300
million
from
over
40,000
victims.

The
defendants,
who
targeted
the
Latino
community
in
10
U.S.
states
and
two
other
countries,
convinced
investors
that
their
funds
would
be
invested
in
crypto
and
other
assets,
but
weren’t,
the

SEC
said
in
a
press
release.

The
SEC
charged
a
total
of
17
defendants,
two
of
whom
settled.

In
a
statement,
SEC
Enforcement
Director
Gurbir
Grewal
said
the
scheme
promised
“life-altering
wealth”
to
victims.

“The
only
thing
that
CryptoFX
guaranteed
was
a
trail
of
thousands
upon
thousands
of
victims
stretching
across
10
states
and
two
foreign
countries,”
he
said.
“A
scheme
of
that
size
requires
lots
of
participants,
and
as
today’s
action
demonstrates,
we
will
pursue
charges
against
not
just
the
principal
architects
of
these
massive
schemes,
but
all
those
who
further
their
fraud
by
unlawfully
soliciting
victims.”

The
SEC

had
previously
charged
Mauricio
Chavez
and
Giorgio
Benvenut,
the
scheme’s
leaders,
in
an
emergency
action
last
October.

Thursday’s
filing
expands
the
number
of
defendants
and
says
at
least
two
of
them,
Gabriel
and
Dulce
Ochoa,
continued
soliciting
investors
past
last
year’s
action.