A New York man accused of defrauding thousands of investors in a ‘double your money’ digital asset scam has been charged by the Department of Justice (DoJ) with commodities and wire fraud. DoJ alleges that the man made off with $59 million from his investors, claiming to invest in digital assets and the foreign exchange markets.
From September 2021 until the DoJ got a hold of him this month, Eddy Alexandre was allegedly operating EminiFX, a company that claimed to trade in the digital assets and forex spaces. He lured investors with promises of guaranteed passive returns, which his own proprietary trading technology would generate, authorities said.
Specifically, the New Yorker claimed that he could double an investor’s money in five months through 5% weekly returns on investment using a “Robo-Advisor Assisted account” to conduct trading. He told the clients that the technology was his trade secret and refused to talk about it with anyone.
When investors logged onto the EminiFX website, they saw that their portfolios were getting bigger each week and that the advertised returns had materialized. However, this was a result of Alexandre tampering with the site, not from the actual results of the company’s trading activities.
As the DoJ alleges, Alexandre didn’t even invest most of his money. And on the small amount that he invested, he made a $6 million loss, which he concealed from investors.
Most of the money he raised was directed toward his personal uses. The DoJ approximates that he sent $14.7 million to his personal bank account. He used $155,000 on a new BMW car and about $13,000 on car payments for other cars, including a Mercedes Benz.
“Eddy Alexandre allegedly induced his clients to invest over $59 million with promises of huge passive income returns via his own proprietary trading platform called EminiFx,” United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams commented.
“In reality, no such technology existed, as Alexandre is alleged to have invested very little of their money – most of which he lost – and transferred most of it to his own personal accounts to pay for luxury items for himself.”
DoJ has charged the 50-year-old Valley Stream, New York native, with one count of commodities fraud, which comes with a 10-year prison sentence, and one count of wire fraud which could land him in prison for 20 years.
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