EmpiresX ‘head trader’ to face 4 years of prison over $100M crypto ‘Ponzi’

EmpiresX, one of the key people convicted of being behind the $100 million cryptocurrency ‘Ponzi’ scheme, has been sentenced by a US court to more than four years in prison.

The verdict was handed to Joshua David Nicholas, the “head trader” of cryptocurrency platform EmpiresX.

It follows Guilty on September 8th petition From Nicholas in a conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

according to For the Department of Justice (DOJ), Nicholas has used trading bots that utilize “artificial intelligence and human intelligence” to maximize revenues to ensure the platform delivers “guaranteed” revenues every day for two years. claimed to produce

In reality, the ‘bot’ is a fake, and Nicholas and his associates Emerson Pires and Flavio Goncalves run a ‘Ponzi’ scheme that pays early investors with money from later investors. I was. DOJ claims blockchain analysis shows that his Pires and Goncalves, Brazilian citizens, laundered investors’ money through “foreign-based” crypto exchanges.

Only approximately $1 million of investor funds were transferred to EmpiresX futures trading accounts, with the majority of the funds lost or misappropriated. according to to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which filed a civil suit against the three in June.

At the same time, fraud charges were leveled against the three by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Said The investor’s money was used to “lease a Lamborghini, shop at Tiffany’s, pay for a second home, and more.”

Related: HashFlare Founder Arrested in ‘Amazing’ $575M Crypto Fraud Scheme

Investors were also informed that EmpiresX is SEC registered as a hedge fund and Nicholas is a licensed trader.

The platform is not registered with the Commission, according to the SEC, and Nicholas’ was suspended from trading by the National Futures Association for embezzling customer funds.

The scheme will run for two years, from around September 2020 to early 2022, and the platform will accept withdrawals from customers who wanted to leave the cryptocurrency market due to the significant price drop that began at that time. collapsed due to refusal of

Pires and Goncalves, who lived in Florida, began winding down EmpiresX operations in early 2022 and are believed to have left the United States and are now believed to be in Brazil.