The four individuals and their unincorporated entities promised investors extremely high returns.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said earlier this week it had filed charges against four individuals and their unincorporated entities for operating fraudulent schemes involving precious metals and digital assets.
At one point, the number of customers suspected of being defrauded exceeded 14,000.
The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida against Rene Larralde, Brian Early, Alisha Ann Kingrey and Juan Pablo Valcarce.
The four individuals and their unincorporated entity called Fundsz were charged with “fraudulently soliciting customers to purportedly trade in cryptocurrencies and precious metals.”
The project has been running since October 2020, according to the press release, and promises investors returns of more than 3% per week using a "proprietary algorithm" for trading, which the founders call a "secret sauce."
Speaking of their performance history, the four accused claimed they had made “on-time and accurate payments” for seven years. Furthermore, they said a one-time $2,500 investment in the project could turn into $1 million in 48 months without additional contributions.
The founders also said they run a parallel charity and use some of the donations from Fundsz to support several initiatives, including cleaning the oceans and other health, education and humanitarian-related initiatives.
Fundsz’s strategy seemed to work, amassing more than 14,000 clients at its peak. However, the CFTC argued that the individuals charged never actually traded any of the funds. All of the clients’ gains were “illusory” because the defendants “simply created fictitious weekly returns and reported them to clients.”
“The CFTC continues to root out individuals who defraud customers in the cryptocurrency and precious metals markets. While the products fraudsters claim to trade and their methods of attracting victims (in this case, through social media) may have changed, the old adage ‘if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is’ remains as valid as ever,” said Ian McGinley, Director of Enforcement. #加密货币 #诈骗