We successfully advised the Receivership Estate of EminiFX in repatriating BTC 3658.3 (approximately EUR 60 million). The case concerns ongoing proceedings in the United States regarding a crypto-related “Ponzi-like” scheme.
Fraudulent scheme
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) launched action against EminiFX in May 2022. The CFTC complaint alleged numerous violations of the federal commodities laws in a “Ponzi-like” scheme whereby the defendants pooled at least USD 59 million from hundreds of members of the general public to purportedly trade Forex and cryptocurrencies as well as futures and options in an investment club.
EminiFX allegedly promised outsized returns of 5% to 9.99% per week and gave the impression that EminiFX was profitably trading the participants’ contributions, which was false. Instead, the Complaint alleges, although EminiFX’s trading at an online brokerage racked up over USD 6 million in losses,EminiFX CEO misappropriated over USD 14.7 million for his personal accounts while continuing to report to participants that their account balances were actually increasing by 5% to 9.99% every week.
A significant amount of Bitcoins fraudulently collected from EminiFX investors reached the platform of crypto service providers in Estonia and Lithuania.
Our services and client team
We assisted the Receivership Estate in recovering and repatriating the assets which had reached the platforms of crypto service providers in Estonia and Lithuania to the victims.
Our core project team included partner Norman Aas and assistant lawyer Maarika Maripuu from Estonia, as well as counsel Darius Raulušaitis and senior associate Almina Ivanauskaitė from Lithuania.
More information about the proceedings can be found here.
