SEC and feds charge man over $200M crypto trading scheme

The Securities and Exchange Commission and US prosecutors alleged Ramil Palafox swindled $200 million from investors and funneled it through a fraudulent crypto trading company.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors have charged a man they allege created a crypto scheme that swindled 90,000 people out of $200 million in the hopes of earning returns from Bitcoin and forex trading.

The SEC said on April 22 that it had charged Ramil Palafox, a dual citizen of the US and the Philippines, claiming he misappropriated over $57 million in investor funds gained through his company, PGI Global, between January 2020 and October 2021.

The regulator alleged Palafox used a multilevel marketing model to execute a “Ponzi-like” scam until the company’s collapse in 2021. The SEC said he lured investors through “false claims of crypto industry expertise and a supposed AI-powered auto-trading platform.”

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