US Federal Court Slams EmpiresX Founders with Over $130 Million in Fines

The decision was announced by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which took legal action against the company’s operators for defrauding investors.

A judge in Florida, Cecilia Altonaga, issued a final ruling on February 4 against Brazilian nationals Emerson Pires and Flavio Goncalves, along with their associate Joshua Nicholas. Since the defendants did not respond to the charges in time, the case resulted in a default judgment.

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The court ordered Pires and Goncalves to pay $32.1 million in disgorgement, along with a $96.5 million civil penalty. Nicholas received smaller fines totaling $1.1 million. The ruling also permanently bans all three from participating in US financial markets.

According to court records, Pires and Goncalves convinced investors to deposit at least $40 million into their platform by promising high returns.

However, instead of using the funds as advertised, they redirected the money for personal use, including luxury purchases and travel. Some funds were also used to buy Bitcoin BTC $87,045.84 , Ethereum ETH $2,918.59 , and Tether USDT $1.00 , while investors were misled with fake account balances and restricted withdrawals.

Authorities were able to recover about $22.8 million in digital assets, but most of the money was never returned to its original owners.

Meanwhile, a former Google software engineer was charged by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) on February 5. What happened? Read the full story.