Eddy Alexandre pled guilty to conning thousands of investors by guaranteeing 5% weekly returns, but "failed to invest" most of it, stealing just $14.7 million, prosecutors said.
The CEO of a fake crypto and foreign exchange platform, EminiFX, pled guilty to defrauding investors of nearly $250 million.
Guaranteeing weekly returns of 5%, Eddy Alexandre convinced tens of thousands of investors to entrust him with their money, saying he was "using a 'Robo-Advisor Assisted account' to conduct trading," according to the office of Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It said:
"Alexandre referred to this technology as his 'trade secret' and refused to tell investors what the technology was."
That's because it wasn't. Which didn't stop him from posting weekly income statements showing investors regular growth.
"Eddy Alexandre admitted today to luring investors to his cryptocurrency investment scam by fabricating weekly returns of at least 5%," Williams said. Along the way, Alexandre moved $14.7 million into his own account.
That's the bad news.
The good news — or maybe the less-bad-than-you'd-expect news — is he didn't do all that much with the rest. Williams said:
"In reality, Alexandre failed to invest a substantial portion of this investors' money and even used some funds for personal purchases."
Such as a $155,000 BMW. Which, as luxuries go, isn't really all that luxurious when you're sitting on a quarter-billion dollars.
He did try some investing, Williams' office said, noting that Alexandre "sustained millions of dollars in losses on the limited portion of funds that he did invest, which he did not disclose to his investors."
As opposed to, say, Sam Bankman-Fried, who allegedly misappropriated $10 billion from his FTX exchange customers and seems to have lost $8 billion of it.
Alexandre pled guilty to one count of commodities fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail.
