EminiFX: $288M Judgment Over the 5%-a-Week Crypto Ponzi, With $98M Back to Victims So Far

For the members of EminiFX, the week ended with a number. The company's website showed that their money had grown by at least 5% since the week before, sometimes by almost 10%. One member later wrote to the court-appointed receiver that "every Friday was like Christmas morning."

None of the numbers were real. On 8 October 2026, US District Judge Valerie Caproni of the Southern District of New York entered a final judgment ordering EminiFX Inc. and its founder, Eddy Alexandre, to pay more than $288 million. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal regulator for futures and commodity markets, announced it on 19 October. The total has three parts: $228,576,962 in restitution to investors, $15,049,500 in disgorgement and a $45,148,500 civil penalty.

EminiFX ran for about eight months, from September 2021 to May 2022. In that time tens of thousands of people sent it more than $262 million, the court found. By July 2026 the receiver had returned more than $98 million to more than 28,000 of them, according to the CFTC.

Alexandre, 50 when he was arrested, lived in Valley Stream, on Long Island. He had served as a deacon and chaplain at Maranatha, a French-speaking Seventh-day Adventist church in Queens, according to The Haitian Times. Most of his victims were Haitian, many of them church members, the judge who sentenced him said. Damian Williams, then the US Attorney in Manhattan, said Alexandre exploited "his position of trust within his church and the Haitian community".

The promise: 5% a week

Alexandre sold EminiFX as an "investment club" that gave ordinary people easy access to two kinds of trading: forex, which means betting on exchange rates such as the dollar against the euro, and cryptocurrency, digital money such as bitcoin that no bank or government issues. The name echoes the E-mini, a popular futures contract, which is a bet on where a stock index such as the S&P 500 will stand on a set date. The engine, he said, was a "Robo-Advisor Assisted Account", or RA3: trading software he called his "trade secret" and refused to describe. Members also earned bonuses for recruiting others.

The dashboard reported returns of 5% to 9.99% a week, and prosecutors said Alexandre told investors they would double their money within five months. Small weekly numbers hide how big that is. Left to compound, 5% a week turns $1,000 into about $12,600 in a year. At 9.99% a week it becomes about $141,000. The S&P 500 has averaged roughly 10% a year over the long run. To pay 5% a week on $262 million, EminiFX would have needed about $13 million of fresh trading profit every week.

©CMZ chart. CMZ calculation

EminiFX never came close. The court found that it lost money in 24 of the 30 weeks it traded. In its best week, when it told members they had made 9.98%, the real return was 2.28%. The RA3 never existed. In his criminal case Alexandre admitted that the technology was "still missing" when he said it was running, and that the weekly figures "were not based on investment returns."

Where the money went

A Ponzi scheme pays old investors with new investors' money, and in January 2025 the court ruled that EminiFX was one. Members who withdrew their "profits" were paid from a single pool that held everyone's deposits. About $34 million went out that way, and many people took out more than they had put in.

At least $15,049,500 went to bank and trading accounts in Alexandre's own name, the receiver found. Court papers say it paid for credit card bills, cars and cash. Prosecutors said $155,000 bought him a BMW and another $13,000 covered car payments, including to Mercedes-Benz. The CFTC's complaint added Saks Fifth Avenue, flights, luxury hotels and EminiFX "galas" used to recruit more investors. Investors' money also bought a $4.8 million house in Manhasset, Long Island, The Haitian Times reported.

The money that was invested mostly lost. Alexandre traded stock index futures through his account at Interactive Brokers, an online stockbroker. EminiFX also held bitcoin, which lost more than $40 million as its price fell in 2022, the receiver, David Castleman, told victims in a 2023 video briefing. Running the business cost about $6 million. In all, the court put the money lost this way at more than $49 million. By May 2022, Castleman said, the gap between what members' dashboards showed and what the company actually held was over $300 million.

Alexandre had filed for bankruptcy twice before, in 2017 and 2019, according to The Haitian Times.

Arrest, plea and prison

On 11 May 2022 Judge Caproni froze the company's assets and appointed a temporary receiver, a court officer who takes control of a fraudulent business to recover money and return it. The next morning the FBI arrested Alexandre and prosecutors charged him with commodities fraud and wire fraud, while the CFTC brought its civil case.

On 10 February 2023 he pleaded guilty to one count of commodities fraud and agreed to forfeit $248,829,276.73. Forfeiture lets the government seize money and property linked to a crime. On 18 July 2023 US District Judge John P. Cronan sentenced him to 108 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and ordered $213,639,133.53 in restitution.

The hearing split the room. The judge had received about 500 letters supporting Alexandre, The Haitian Times reported. Ermine Mompremier, a nurse, said her withdrawals had helped her support family in Haiti: "It was the best thing that could happen to me." Phucien Baptiste, who said he had invested $25,000, asked from the podium: "Do you have a heart, Mr. Alexandre?" Binson Guillaume, a truck driver who said he had put in $100,000 from his 401(k) retirement account, said the sentence brought "some relief." Alexandre said he fully acknowledged "the gravity of my actions." Judge Cronan was blunt: "Victims of this offense are not likely to be made whole."

What $288 million means

In August 2025 Judge Caproni granted summary judgment, a ruling made without a trial because the key facts were not genuinely disputed, leaning on Alexandre's own guilty plea. The headline figure adds three different orders together. Restitution, $228.6 million, is the investors' net loss: everything paid in, minus everything taken out. Disgorgement, $15.05 million, is the money Alexandre personally took; the court said the restitution figure already includes it, and every dollar he pays in restitution counts against it. The civil penalty, $45.15 million, is exactly three times that $15.05 million. The law allows a penalty of up to three times the gain, and the judge imposed the full multiple for an egregious, intentional fraud. A penalty is paid to the government, not to victims, and the judgment puts it behind the victims' claims. In effect, the most the two can be made to pay is about $273.7 million before interest. Both are also permanently banned from trading futures and from registering with the CFTC.

A judgment is not a cheque. The CFTC's own announcement warns that such orders "may not always result in the recovery of lost money" when the wrongdoers lack assets. Alexandre, in prison and representing himself, has filed motion after motion, and in opposing the penalty told the court that "EminiFX is a legitimate business." Judge Caproni called that false and wrote that the "EminiFX estate" consists solely of stolen funds to which he has no entitlement.

What victims are getting back

The money reaching victims comes from what the receiver seized, not from the judgment. In mid-2023 the receivership held $153.7 million. In January 2025 the court approved Castleman's distribution plan, a "rising tide" formula: every investor is brought up to the same percentage of what they put in, and money already withdrawn counts toward their share. Net winners, people who took out more than they put in, get nothing and may be sued to return some of it. Payments began in early 2025. In August 2025 the receivership said investors who had put in more than $1,000 could expect 45% of their deposits minus withdrawals, and those who put in $1,000 or less 55%, The Christian Post reported.

By July 2026 more than $98 million had reached more than 28,000 investors. That is about 37% of the $262 million paid in, or about 43% of the $228.6 million net loss. The court has kept the case open while payments continue.

©CMZ chart. Data: CFTC; SDNY court records