G4 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, JUNE 12 , 2022
wrote that the government
targeted Alexandre because he is
Black and an immigrant.
“I believe the government is
wrong,” one signer said. “They
don’t like to see black people do
nothing for themselves.”
Rechanka Doristil posted a
YouTube video praying on behalf
of Alexandre and other investors.
“Every week I used to find the
5 percent that he promised or
more,” she wrote in an email. “He
is not a scammer for sure.”
Castleman said over
$62 million has been frozen in a
number of accounts in the names
of EminiFX and Alexandre
located at several banks,
brokerages and cryptocurrency
exchanges.
Although his investigation is in
its very early stages, Castleman
said he has not yet identified an
account of EminiFX that contains
revenue from an underlying
business operation or any
legitimate business activity.
Those rallying for Alexandre
point to the $62 million that the
receiver has located as evidence
that EminiFX was not a scam. But
in a Ponzi scheme, especially one
that is relatively new, promoters
can deliver promised returns,
initially.
Even if there are little or no
legitimate business or investment
earnings, so long as most people
don’t cash out, it is possible to
make payouts from investor
funds, not returns on any
investments.
Even after this was explained
to some EminiFX investors, they
stood steadfast in their belief that
Alexandre will be cleared of all
charges.
I believe that they believe. They
cling to their trust in Alexandre
because the alternative, that they
may have been duped, is
unthinkable.
“Everything that we were
promised, we got it,” said
Markens Nicolas, who helped
start the change.org petition. “I’m
wondering if the charges are real.”website promised. It was an
appealing pitch that brought in
millions of dollars from
thousands of investors in the
United States and abroad.
The FBI says the purported
proprietary trading platform
used by EminiFX was a fraud and
that Alexandre was running a
cryptocurrency and foreign
exchange Ponzi scheme that
collected more than $59 million
from September 2021 until he
was taken into custody on May 12.
The Justice Department
complaint alleges the platform
invested only a relatively small
percentage of investor funds and
misdirected about $14.7 million
to his personal bank account.
“Each week EminiFX’s website
falsely represented to investors
that they had earned at least 5
percent on their investment,
which they could withdraw or
reinvest,” the federal complaint
said. “Alexandre stated that if an
investor invested $100,000, they
would be a millionaire within two
to three years.”
A separate complaint by the
Commodity Futures Trading
Commission alleges that only
about $9 million of the
$59 million raised from investors
appears to have been sent to a
futures commission merchant for
trading purposes. The complaint
alleges that trading by Alexandre
at an online brokerage racked up
over $6 million in losses.
Alexandre has been charged
with commodities fraud and wire
fraud offenses. Emil Bove, an
attorney for Alexandre, did not
respond to requests for comment.
Alexandre entered a plea of not
guilty, according to the Justice
Department.
It appears there were at least
62,000 active EminiFX user
accounts, according to a
preliminary status report by
David Castleman, who has been
appointed temporary receiver for
EminiFX.
Despite the charges, the
investor support of Alexandre is
extraordinary. Investors have
started a change.org petition in
support of him. More than 11,00 0
people so far have signed the
petition offering prayers for
Alexandre.
“I will continue to pray for him,
with God by his side, he will come
out victorious from this setup,”
one person wrote. Many investorsFaithfully, by 2:30
a.m. on Fridays,
Frantz Victorin
said, he received
at least a 5 percent
return from
EminiFX, an
online investment
platform that said
people could get
rich investing in
cryptocurrency
and the foreign exchange
markets, also known as forex.
EminiFX chief executive Eddy
Alexandre, a fellow Haitian native
living in New York, would explain
that investors could withdraw
their profits and use the money to
pay their mortgage, car note or
other bills. Or, they could reinvest
the returns, Victorin said.
“Everybody got paid,” Victorin
said. “They got their profit in
their e-wallet.”
An FBI investigation alleges
that Alexandre, who is also the
founder, president and sole
owner of EminiFX, was running a
Ponzi scheme, and the profits
people believe they were making
were not real.
But to this community of
family, friends and fellow church
members, Alexandre was like a
shepherd leading a flock to what
they hoped would be fortunes.
The weekly returns were so big
and consistent, a minimum of
5 percent and sometimes almost
10 percent, that Victorin
projected he would become a
millionaire after a little less than
a year of investing with EminiFX.
“I took out at least four loans
from different banks to make sure
the dream he was talking about,
as a family, we were ready,”
Victorin said.
He still has faith in Alexandre.
“We believe in this guy,”
Victorin said. “He is a good guy, a
great guy. And we never met
somebody like that, somebody
very down-to-earth, very
respectful, transparent with a lot
of charisma.”
Like so many other investors,
Victorin, who lives in
Massachusetts, attended
Thursday night Zoom meetings,
where he said Alexandre talked
about a system where people
could make their money work for
them instead of them working for
money.
“EminiFX is your sure path to
financial freedom,” the companyExec arrested, but investors still believeMichelle
Singletary
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