The head trader of a $100 million global cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme has pleaded guilty and faces up to five years in prison, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced. “The defendants allegedly misappropriated large sums of investor money to lease Lamborghinis, buy Tiffany & Co., make second home payments, and more.”
Empire’s chief trader pleaded guilty
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday that Joshua David Nicholas pleaded guilty to being the “principal trader” in a “global cryptocurrency investment scam that collected approximately $100 million from investors.”
The 28-year-old Florida man admitted that he and others misled investors about the cryptocurrency platform EmpireSx, including “guaranteed” returns and that EmpireSx developed a trading bot that used artificial and human intelligence to maximize profits. For investors.
The DOJ listed:
Instead, Empiresx operated a Ponzi scheme by paying the early investors later with the proceeds from Empiresx investors.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also charged Nicolas with Empiresx founders Emerson Pires and Flavio Goncalves, both of Brazil, for violating the registration and anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. .
Noting that EmpireSex never registered its investment program with the SEC, the securities regulator said:
The bot was fake, Nicholas’s business suffered huge losses, and the defendants transferred some of the investors’ money to Empirex’s brokerage account.
“Instead, the defendants misappropriated large sums of investor money by leasing Lamborghinis, purchasing Tiffany & Co., making second home payments, and more,” the SEC said.
The Justice Department indicted all three men in June on “one count of 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 transferred investors’ funds to foreign-based cryptocurrency exchanges.
The Department of Justice announced:
Nicholas pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Do you think Nicholas should go to jail for five years for his role in the Empirex crypto Ponzi scheme? Let us know in the comments section below.
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