Justice Department indicts nine people in crypto-ponzi schemes

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The US Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that the agency has filed charges against nine people for operating two crypto Ponzi schemes, IcomTech and Forcount, also known as Weltsys.

With these two indictments, this bureau is sending a message to all cryptocurrency scammers: We’re coming for you, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. Stealing is stealing, even dressed in cryptocurrency lingo.

According to the DOJ, IcomTech and Forcount were both purported cryptocurrency mining and trading companies that promised investors profits in exchange for buying cryptocurrency-related investment products. The victims invested in cash, checks, wire transfers and real cryptocurrency.

In the first indictment, the DOJ charged David Carmona, Marco Ruiz Ochoa, Moses Valdez, Juan Arellano, David Brend, and Gustavo Rodriguez with conspiracy to commit wire fraud for their involvement with IcomTech. The program, according to the agency, ran from mid-2018 to late 2019.

In the second indictment, the DOJ charged Francisley Da Silva, Juan Tacuri, and Antonia Perez Hernandez with the same for their involvement with Forcount, which ran an alleged Ponzi scheme from mid-2017 to late 2021. Silva and Tacuri are also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The founders and promoters of each scheme falsely promised their respective victims, among other things, that profits from trading and mining the companies’ cryptocurrency would result in guaranteed daily returns on the victims’ investments and would double those investments within six months, the agency said.

Prosecutors say neither company actually traded or mined cryptocurrency. They used victims’ funds to pay other victims, promote the global agenda with lavish exhibition presentations to attract new victims and enrich themselves.

The DOJ says that the promoters of the schemes claimed that these tokens, known as Icoms and Mindexcoin, would end up being worth a significant sum of money. In reality, according to the agency, they were essentially worthless, resulting in financial loss for the victims.

While the victims watched the profits pile up on the respective online portals, most of the victims were unable to withdraw any of these so-called profits and eventually lost their entire investments, prosecutors said. In contrast, promoters of IcomTech and Forcounts siphoned off, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars in victims’ funds, which they withdrew in cash, spent on promotional expenses for the schemes, and used for personal expenses. such as luxury goods and real estate.

The case is being handled by the Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises Unit of the Department of Justice.

Excitement around cryptocurrency and the potential for huge profits has drawn potential investors to the alleged schemes led by the individuals charged today, Homeland Security Special Agent Ivan J. Arvelo said. . With high-end clothes and cars, these individuals would have presented a life of luxury to potential investors, but instead of a lucrative investment opportunity, the victims were cheated out of their life savings and left with nothing to live for. to show.

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