EmpiresX 'Head Trader' Faces 4 Years in Prison for $100M Crypto 'Ponzi'
Two other associates who helped run fraudulent US-based crypto platform EmpiresX left the country earlier this year and are believed to be in Brazil.< /p>
New
EmpiresX, one of the main figures found guilty of being behind the $100 million "Ponzi" encryption scheme, has just been sentenced to more than four years in prison by a US court.
The sentencing has been handed down to Joshua David Nicholas, the 'head trader' of alleged crypto platform EmpiresX, who is now set to serve a 51-month prison sentence along with three years of freedom being watched for her role in the fraudulent scheme.< /p>
This follows a September 8 guilty plea by Nicholas to conspiracy to commit securities fraud.
According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), over a two-year period, Nicholas claimed the platform would make "guaranteed" daily returns using a trading bot that used "artificial and human intelligence " to maximize returns.
In reality, the "bot" was fake, and Nicolas and his associates, Emerson Pires and Flavio Goncalves, set up a "Ponzi" scheme that paid previous investors with the money of later investors. The DOJ alleges that blockchain analysis shows that Pires and Goncalves, both Brazilian nationals, laundered investors' funds through a "foreign-based" crypto exchange.
Only about $1 million in investor funds were sent to a futures trading account for EmpiresX, with the majority of funds lost or misappropriated according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) which filed civil suits against the three in June.
At the same time, charges of fraud were brought against the trio by Security...
Two other associates who helped run fraudulent US-based crypto platform EmpiresX left the country earlier this year and are believed to be in Brazil.< /p>
New
EmpiresX, one of the main figures found guilty of being behind the $100 million "Ponzi" encryption scheme, has just been sentenced to more than four years in prison by a US court.
The sentencing has been handed down to Joshua David Nicholas, the 'head trader' of alleged crypto platform EmpiresX, who is now set to serve a 51-month prison sentence along with three years of freedom being watched for her role in the fraudulent scheme.< /p>
This follows a September 8 guilty plea by Nicholas to conspiracy to commit securities fraud.
According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), over a two-year period, Nicholas claimed the platform would make "guaranteed" daily returns using a trading bot that used "artificial and human intelligence " to maximize returns.
In reality, the "bot" was fake, and Nicolas and his associates, Emerson Pires and Flavio Goncalves, set up a "Ponzi" scheme that paid previous investors with the money of later investors. The DOJ alleges that blockchain analysis shows that Pires and Goncalves, both Brazilian nationals, laundered investors' funds through a "foreign-based" crypto exchange.
Only about $1 million in investor funds were sent to a futures trading account for EmpiresX, with the majority of funds lost or misappropriated according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) which filed civil suits against the three in June.
At the same time, charges of fraud were brought against the trio by Security...
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