The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged 17 people for their alleged roles in a $300 million Ponzi scheme that targeted more than 40,000 predominantly Latino investors, according to a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Houston, The Hill reported. The complaint follows the SEC’s emergency action in September 2022 that halted the company accused of carrying out the scheme, CryptoFX, and charged the two alleged main actors involved, Mauricio Chavez and Giorgio Benvenuto. Since 2022, the SEC has continued the investigation to identify more individuals involved in the alleged scheme. “We allege that CryptoFX was a $300 million Ponzi scheme that targeted Latino investors with promises of financial freedom and life-altering wealth from ‘risk free’ and ‘guaranteed’ crypto and foreign exchange investments,” Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s division of enforcement, said in a statement. According to the complaint, filed in the Southern District of Texas, the 17 defendants acted as “leaders” of the CryptoFX network. They allegedly raised $300 million from predominantly Latino investors and promised returns of 15 to 100 percent on their investments. The SEC alleges that the defendants mostly did not use the funds for trading purposes, as they claimed to investors. The defendants instead used the funds to pay off supposed returns to other investors, to pay themselves commissions and bonuses and to “fund their own lifestyles,” according to the SEC’s complaint.
