IcomTech Execs Hit with $5M Fine Over Fake Bitcoin Trading

Five people have been fined more than $5 million by a California court for their roles in the “Ponzi” scheme run by IcomTech. The conspiracy featured a fraudulent Bitcoin trading operation and a misuse of stolen cash.

According to a statement released by the CFTC on December 11, the following individuals were found liable by the default judgment order: David Carmona, Juan Arellano Parra, Moses Valdez, and David Brend. Marco A. Ruiz Ochoa was issued a consent order. The allegation of violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and regulations by the CFTC was included in the complaint. The CFTC sued on May 24, 2023, and the default judgment was announced on October 21, 2023.

These five fraudsters deceived over 190 people from various countries into parting with over $1 million by claiming they could invest their money in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies through a site that did not exist. Instead, they stole almost $8.4 million (as of December 2022) from their victims.

Ochoa, Carmona, Arellano Parra, Valdez, and Brend will pay a combined total of about $5 million to the victims, including a $1 million civil monetary penalty and around $1 million in restitution.

Five people were forever banned from registering with the CFTC and trading in any markets that are regulated by the CFTC. Concurrently, in October, Carmona, the “mastermind” and creator of IcomTech’s Ponzi scheme, was given a 10-year prison sentence for conspiracy to conduct wire fraud.

Rodriguez was given an eight-year sentence on October 31 for his part in the crime, and Brend was given a ten-year sentence on December 2. For his role in a conspiracy to conduct wire fraud, Ochoa received a five-year jail term in January.

The organizers of the Ponzi scheme IcomTech would frequently travel around the US and other countries, holding “lavish expos” to entice unsuspecting victims between mid-2018 and the end of 2019. The fraud promised investors a 100% return on their money every six weeks.

They often showed up to these events in fancy cars and wore expensive clothes while bragging about their profits to attempt to convince possible investors that they could also become rich.