Seventeen (17) people have been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for their involvement in a $300 million Ponzi scheme that involved Houston-based CryptoFX LLC. The fraud targeted more than 40,000 investors in the United States and two other countries, most of whom were Latino.
According to the SEC, CryptoFX was a Ponzi scheme that pretended to trade cryptocurrencycurrency assets and foreign exchange markets. The defendants allegedly gave investors returns of 15 to 100 percent, but they instead embezzled the majority of the money for commissions, fictitious returns, and personal expenses.
In the SEC’s lawsuit, people from Florida, Texas, California, Louisiana, Illinois, and Illinois are accused of breaking securities laws. Charges related to securities registration, broker registration, antifraud, and Ismael Zarco Sanchez are brought against Gabriel and Dulce Ochoa, Maria Saravia, Gloria Castaneda, and Roberto Zavala.
Charges for securities and broker registration are pending for Gabriel Arguelles, Hector Aquino, Orlin Wilfredo Turcios Castro, Carmen De La Cruz, Elizabeth Escoto, Reyna Guiffaro, Marco Antonio Lemus, Juan Puac, Luis Serrano, Julio Taffinder, and Claudia Velazquez. Gabriel Ochoa is accused of violating leader protection.
For each defendant, the SEC is requesting a permanent order, a discharge with interest, and civil penalties. Serrano and Taffinder agreed to pay nearly $68,000 in civil fines, discharge, and interest in exchange for accepting final judgments. This lawsuit comes after the CryptoFX scheme was placed on emergency hold by the SEC in September 2022 and charges were made against its two major tenets.
