Back in May, the FBI took EminiFX founder Eddy Alexandre into custody after accusing him of fraud.
In June, the Justice Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused his cryptocurrency company EminiFX of being a Ponzi scheme, arguing that it had cheated $59 million out of thousands of investors.
And now, according to a preliminary report, it sounds like the company made out with far more money than initially thought, collecting a staggering $250 million from around 62,000 user accounts between September 2021 and May 2022, The Washington Post reports.
It’s a high-profile example of a crypto venture seemingly being exposed for what it truly is: a scam. It certainly wouldn’t be the first. Still, if the allegations are true, it does stand out for its mendacity.
“This is like no other case I’ve followed,” wrote WaPo columnist Michelle Singletary.
EminiFX promised investors returns of at least five percent a week, which should already raise innumerable red flags, using what it claimed to be a proprietary trading system that it claimed invested money on foreign exchange markets.
But investigators soon caught on to the ruse, discovering that it was most likely using funds from investors to pay other investors, a hallmark sign of a Ponzi scheme.
There was even a “multilevel marketing aspect” to EminiFX’s operations, according to Singletary, rewarding those who recruit others with bonuses.
While returns remained positive every week, “I haven’t found any investing activity…
