Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, today announced that EDDY ALEXANDRE was sentenced by U.S. District Judge John P. Cronan to nine years in prison for engaging in commodity fraud. ALEXANDRE was the head of an alleged cryptocurrency and foreign exchange ("forex") trading platform called EminiFX, and he defrauded over 25,000 investors on the EminiFX trading platform of over $248 million.
US attorney Damian Williams said: "Eddy Alexander defrauded tens of thousands of ordinary investors out of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in his cryptocurrency investment scam. Alexander's fraud was brazen and included manufacturing weekly returns of at least 5% on investments out of thin air and falsely claiming to use artificial intelligence trading technology that didn't even exist.More egregiously, Alexander recruited many of his investors exploiting his position of trust within his church and the Haitian community, even going so far as to recruit church members to help recruit EminiFX investors.As today's sentence shows, leaders cryptocurrency companies that lie and deceive their customers will be held accountable for their crimes.
According to the allegations contained in the indictment and other documents filed and statements made in court:
From or about September 2021, until or about May 2022, ALEXANDRE operated EminiFX, Inc. ("EminiFX"), a purported investment platform that ALEXANDRE founded and for which he solicited more than $248 million in investments from over 25,000 individual investors. ALEXANDRE marketed EminiFX as an investment platform through which investors would earn passive income through automated investments in cryptocurrency and forex trading. ALEXANDRE offered his investors "guaranteed" high returns on investment using a new technology that he claimed was secret. Specifically, ALEXANDRE falsely represented to investors that they would double their money within five months of investing by earning at least a 5% weekly return on their investment by using a "robo-advisor assisted account" to trade. . ALEXANDRE called this technology a “trade secret” and refused to tell investors what technology it was. Every week, the EminiFX website falsely represented to investors that they had earned at least 5% on their investment, which they could withdraw or reinvest.
In truth and in fact, and as ALEXANDRE well knew, EminiFX did not earn 5% weekly returns for its investors. ALEXANDRE did not even invest a substantial part of the funds of the investors entrusted to him, and ALEXANDRE suffered millions of dollars of losses on the limited part of the funds he invested, which he did not disclosed to its investors. Instead of using investor funds as he promised, ALEXANDRE also embezzled at least about $14,700,000 into his personal bank account. For example, ALEXANDRE used $155,000 of investor funds to purchase a BMW car for himself and spent an additional $13,000 of investor funds on car payments, including to Mercedes Benz.
* * *
In addition to his prison sentence, ALEXANDRE, 51, of Valley Stream, New York, was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay forfeiture in the amount of $248,829,276.73 and restitution of an amount of $213,639,133.53.
Mr Williams praised the investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and also thanked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which filed a separate civil action.
This matter is being handled by the Bureau's Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force. Assistant US Attorneys Nicholas Folly and Jared Lenow are in charge of the prosecutions.