The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ordered the emergency shutdown of an ongoing fraudulent crypto offering targeting the country’s Latino community. CryptoFX, a Texas-based firm run by Mauricio Chavez and Giorgio Benvenuto, both residents of Houston, allegedly “used the attraction and novelty of crypto assets to solicit money from unsophisticated investors,” promising vastly outsized returns on their investment, per an SEC filing released Monday. Despite having no experience, background, or training in investments or crypto, Chavez has been teaching paid classes “for the ostensible purpose of educating and empowering the Latino community to build wealth through crypto asset trading.” However, these seminars, which were held since 2020, “were merely conduits for soliciting investors to give their money to CryptoFX,” with the firm using a referral system to recruit new investors, according to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Full story : SEC Cracks Down on Multimillion Crypto Ponzi Targeting Latino Investors.