A California court has ordered five individuals involved in IcomTech’s “Ponzi” scheme to pay over $5 million for fraud and misappropriating stolen funds through a fake Bitcoin trading scheme.
The default judgment order found David Carmona, Juan Arellano Parra, Moses Valdez and David Brend liable for all violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulations alleged in the complaint, while Marco A. Ruiz Ochoa was issued a consent order, the CFTC said in a Dec. 11 statement.
The default judgment was made on Oct. 21 from the CFTC’s lawsuit filed on May 24, 2023.
The five fraudulently solicited more than $1 million from 190 individuals in the United States and other countries after falsely promising them they would invest their funds into Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies through their non-existent mining and trading platform.
Instead, they misappropriated a large portion of victims’ funds, estimated at around $8.4 million in December 2022.
Carmona, Arellano Parra, Valdez, and Brend will each pay a $1 million civil monetary penalty and also, along with Ochoa, pay about $1 million in restitution to the victims — totaling over $5 million.
All five individuals were permanently banned from registering with the CFTC and from trading in any CFTC-regulated markets.
It comes as Carmona, the founder and “mastermind” behind IcomTech’s Ponzi, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for conspiracy to commit wire fraud in October.
Source: Cointelegraph
Rodriguez was sentenced to eight years on Oct. 31 for his involvement, while Brend received a 10-year sentence on Dec. 2.
Ochoa was also sentenced to five years of prison time in January for conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
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Operating between mid-2018 and the end of 2019, IcomTech promised investors a 100% return on their investment every six weeks, and its operators would often travel through the US and overseas, hosting “lavish expos” to lure victims into the Ponzi scheme.
They often arrived at these events in expensive cars, wearing luxurious clothing while boasting about their profits to convince potential investors they could reach the same level of financial success.
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