PANews reported on April 23 that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today accused PGI Global founder Ramil Palafox of planning a fraud scheme that raised approximately $198 million from global investors and misappropriated more than $57 million of investor funds.
According to the SEC's indictment, Palafox's company is called PGI Global, which claims to be a crypto asset and foreign exchange trading company. From January 2020 to October 2021, Palafox offered and sold PGI Global's "membership" packages, claiming that these packages guaranteed investors high returns from PGI Global's so-called crypto asset and foreign exchange transactions, and provided members with multi-level marketing-like referral rewards to encourage them to recruit new investors. Palafox misappropriated more than $57 million of investor funds to purchase Lamborghinis, goods from luxury retailers, and other personal expenses. He also used most of the remaining investor funds to pay other investors their so-called returns and referral rewards in a Ponzi-like manner until the scam was exposed at the end of 2021.
The SEC has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging that Palafox violated the antifraud and registration provisions of the federal securities laws. The lawsuit seeks permanent injunctive relief, conduct-based injunctions prohibiting Palafox from engaging in multi-level marketing schemes involving the offer or sale of securities and the offering of crypto assets bought and sold as securities, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains and prejudgment interest, and civil penalties. The lawsuit also names BBMR Threshold LLC, Darvie Mendoza, Marissa Mendoza Palafox, and Linda Ventura as relief defendants and seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains and prejudgment interest.
