The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed federal fraud charges Thursday against 17 sales workers with a Houston-based cryptocurrency trading company for allegedly operating a $300 million Ponzi scheme targeted more than 40,000 investors — most of them Latinos.
In a 23-page complaint filed in the Southern District Court in Texas by the SEC’s Fort Worth Regional Office, the agency accuses the CryptoFX employees of using Zoom chats and social media to illegally sell investment contracts by promising returns from 15 percent to 100 percent in its crypto and foreign exchange training program. Instead of investing the money, CryptoFX used the funds to pay commissions to workers and pay returns to prior investors.
In September 2022, the SEC filed an emergency action against CryptoFX and its two primary principals, CEO and founder Mauricio Chavez and executive Giorgio Benvenuto. The regulatory authority successfully had a court-appointed receiver take control of the operations in 2022. In August 2023, a federal court entered judgment against Chavez. Three weeks ago, a federal court did the same against Benvenuto.
In Thursday’s complaint, the SEC accused 17 salespersons from Texas, California, Louisiana, Illinois and Florida with “misappropriating investor funds, knowingly soliciting investors to invest in fraudulent investments and/or making Ponzi payments” in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Investors were told their money was guaranteed “even if there was a world war or a power outage.”
Those accused include Gabriel Arguelles, Hector Aquino, Orlin Wilifredo Turcios Castro, Carmen De La Cruz, Elizabeth Escoto, Reyna Guiffaro, Marco Antonio Lemus, Juan Puac, Luis Serrano, Julio Taffinder, and Claudia Velazquez.
The complaint also charges Edinburg resident Gabriel Ochoa with violating the whistleblower protection provisions. Ochoa and his wife, Dulce Ochoa, “continued to solicit investments after the court issued orders to halt the CryptoFX scheme in September 2022, and Gabriel Ochoa instructed two investors to rescind their complaints to the SEC for them to recover their investments.”
Defendant Maria Saravia allegedly told investors that the SEC’s lawsuit was fake, the SEC lawsuit states
“After filing the initial charges in this case and obtaining emergency relief, we continued our investigation to identify additional individuals who allegedly played roles in this massive Ponzi scheme,” SEC Fort Worth Regional Director Eric Werner stated in a press release. “Our efforts bore significant fruit as the charges and allegations today demonstrate.”
Two of the defendants, Serrano and Taffinder, have consented to the entry of final judgments without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC’s complaint. They have agreed to pay more than $68,000 combined in civil penalties, disgorgement and interest, according to SEC officials.
The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Jillian Harris, Carol Hahn, and Jamie Haussecker of the Fort Worth Regional Office and was supervised by Jim Etri and B. David Fraser. The litigation is being conducted by Matthew Gulde and supervised by Keefe Bernstein.
The case is SEC v. Sanchez, SDTX, No. 4:24-cv-939.