Damian Williams, the US Lawyer for the Southern District of New York, introduced at present that EDDY ALEXANDRE was sentenced by U.S. District Choose John P. Cronan to 9 years in jail for partaking in commodities fraud. ALEXANDRE was the chief of a purported cryptocurrency and overseas alternate (“foreign exchange”) buying and selling platform known as EminiFX, and he defrauded over 25,000 buyers within the EminiFX buying and selling platform of greater than $248 million.
U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams mentioned: “Eddy Alexandre defrauded tens of 1000’s of bizarre buyers of virtually a quarter-billion {dollars} in his cryptocurrency funding rip-off. Alexandre’s fraud was brazen and included fabricating weekly funding returns of at the very least 5% out of skinny air and falsely claiming to make use of synthetic intelligence buying and selling expertise that didn’t even exist. Most egregiously, Alexandre recruited many of his buyers by exploiting his place of belief inside his church and the Haitian neighborhood, even going as far as to enlist members of the church to assist recruit EminiFX buyers. As at present’s sentence demonstrates, cryptocurrency executives who lie and cheat their prospects will likely be held to account for his or her crimes.”
Based on the allegations within the Indictment and different filings and statements made in courtroom:
From in or about September 2021, as much as and together with in or about Could 2022, ALEXANDRE operated EminiFX, Inc. (“EminiFX”), a purported funding platform that ALEXANDRE based, and for which he solicited greater than $248 million in investments from over 25,000 particular person buyers. ALEXANDRE marketed EminiFX as an funding platform by way of which buyers would earn passive earnings by way of automated investments in cryptocurrency and foreign currency trading. ALEXANDRE supplied his buyers “assured” excessive funding returns utilizing new expertise that he claimed was secret. Particularly, ALEXANDRE falsely represented to buyers that they might double their cash inside 5 months of investing by incomes at the very least 5% weekly returns on their funding utilizing a “Robo-Advisor Assisted account” to conduct buying and selling. ALEXANDRE referred to this expertise as his “commerce secret” and refused to inform buyers what the expertise was. Every week, EminiFX’s web site falsely represented to buyers that they’d earned at the very least 5% on their funding, which they might withdraw or re-invest.
In reality and in reality, and as ALEXANDRE nicely knew, EminiFX didn’t earn 5% weekly returns for its buyers. ALEXANDRE didn’t even make investments a considerable portion of the investor funds entrusted to him, and ALEXANDRE sustained tens of millions of {dollars} in losses on the restricted portion of funds that he did make investments, which he didn’t open up to his buyers. As a substitute of utilizing buyers’ funds as he had promised, ALEXANDRE additionally misdirected at the very least roughly $14,700,000 to his private checking account. For instance, ALEXANDRE used $155,000 in investor funds to buy a BMW automotive for himself and spent an extra $13,000 of investor funds on automotive funds, together with to Mercedes Benz.
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In addition to his jail time period, ALEXANDRE, 51, of Valley Stream, New York, was sentenced to 3 years of supervised launch and ordered to pay forfeiture within the quantity of $248,829,276.73 and restitution within the quantity of $213,639,133.53.
Mr. Williams praised the investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and in addition thanked the Commodity Futures Trading Fee, which introduced a separate civil motion.
This case is being dealt with by the Workplace’s Securities and Commodities Fraud Process Drive. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicholas Folly and Jared Lenow are in cost of the prosecution.