The Securities and Exchange Commission has obtained final judgments against Empires Consulting Corp. (“EmpiresX”), and its founders Emerson Sousa Pires and Flavio Mendes Goncalves, whom the agency charged with a fake trading scheme.
According to the SEC’s complaint, filed June 30, 2022, Pires and Goncalves operated a purported hedge fund known as EmpiresX. Since at least late 2020, EmpiresX sold investments touting daily profits of one percent earned by a trading “bot” or by manual trading. The complaint alleges that, in reality, the bot was fake, the manual trading resulted in significant losses, and the defendants only transferred a small portion of investors’ funds to EmpiresX’s brokerage account. Instead, the defendants allegedly misappropriated large sums of investors’ money to lease a Lamborghini, shop at Tiffany & Co., make a payment on a second home, and make other personal expenditures.
Source: SEC Obtains Final Judgments Against Operators of Fake Trading Scheme Known as “EmpiresX”
