HyperFund, a global cryptocurrency membership program that subsequently rebranded as HyperVerse and then HyperNation, collected approximately $1.89 billion from investors worldwide between 2020 and 2022 by promising daily passive rewards of 0.5 to 1 percent on membership purchases — an annualized return of 180 to 365 percent — funded in part, the scheme claimed, by revenues from large-scale cryptocurrency mining operations. Those mining operations did not exist. DOJ prosecutors established that HyperFund was a Ponzi scheme and pyramid fraud whose payments to early participants were funded by later investors, not by any underlying commercial activity.
The scheme was co-founded by Xue Samuel Lee, known as Sam Lee, an Australian national who resided in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and was operated through a global network of promoters. Brenda Indah Chunga, known publicly as “Bitcoin Beautee,” served as a top US promoter. Lee and Chunga were charged by the DOJ and SEC in January 2024. Chunga pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud on January 29, 2024. Lee was arrested in Dubai in November 2024 following the issuance of an Interpol Red Notice and was held for approximately 60 days before release; as of mid-2026, he has been indicted but the case has not proceeded to trial or a guilty plea in US proceedings. Rodney Burton, known as “Bitcoin Rodney,” was charged by criminal complaint as an additional promoter.
Note on ROSTER status: the ROSTER designates this entry “Convicted” based on Chunga’s guilty plea. Lee’s case was pending trial as of the most recent public record available. This entry accurately reflects both statuses.
NovaTech Ltd., a Miami-based multi-level marketing and crypto-asset investment program operated by Eddy Petion and Cynthia Petion, raised more than $650 million from at least 200,000 investors worldwide between 2019 and 2023 by claiming to trade investor funds on cryptocurrency and foreign exchange markets. No evidence of genuine trading on behalf of investors was produced. Withdrawals collapsed in or around May 2023 amid regulatory actions across multiple U.S. states and Canadian provinces. The scheme’s pyramid mechanics — where earlier investors were paid from the deposits of new recruits, and where promoter networks earned commission income across multiple tiers — match the operational pattern of a Ponzi combined with an MLM recruitment incentive structure.
The scheme drew heavily from Haitian-American and broader Caribbean-diaspora communities in Florida, New York, and the Caribbean, exploiting shared language, church networks, and community trust to move capital from individuals who in many cases invested retirement savings or family remittances. Regulators in Washington State, Maryland, and several Canadian provinces had issued fraud warnings and cease-and-desist orders years before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil enforcement action in August 2024. The SEC complaint named Eddy and Cynthia Petion and six major promoters — Martin Zizi, Dapilinu Dunbar, James Corbett, Corrie Sampson, John Garofano, and Marsha Hadley — and alleged the entire structure to be an unregistered securities offering that operated as a fraud.
The Petions did not cooperate with the civil proceeding. By late 2024 the SEC reported it believed the couple may be residing outside the United States, with Dubai identified as a possible location, though that claim was later revised. As of mid-2026 the SEC’s civil litigation against the Petions remains active, no criminal indictment has been publicly filed in the United States against the founders, and no investor restitution has been distributed. The promoters charged alongside the founders face civil disgorgement and penalty proceedings.
IcomTech, a New York-based cryptocurrency scheme operated principally by Marco Ruiz Ochoa, also known as Miguel Ángel Caballero Ochoa, defrauded at least 190 investors of approximately $8.4 million between 2018 and 2019 by falsely claiming to operate a crypto trading platform that generated consistent daily returns. Co-operator David Brend assisted in recruitment and promotion. The scheme drew primarily from Dominican-American and other immigrant communities in New York City and the surrounding area, presenting membership as access to a professional crypto trading system otherwise unavailable to ordinary retail investors.
IcomTech offered members purported returns from automated cryptocurrency trading, collected deposits denominated in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and paid early participants with funds contributed by later recruits — the structural hallmark of a Ponzi scheme with no underlying trading operation. Members were encouraged to recruit new participants in exchange for commissions on downstream deposits, adding a multi-level marketing dimension that accelerated both growth and eventual losses. The scheme operated through in-person presentations, community gatherings, and social media promotion, in some cases held at venues familiar to the immigrant communities it targeted.
By late 2019 withdrawals had effectively ceased and the scheme collapsed. Federal prosecutors charged Ochoa and Brend with wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. Ochoa was arrested and ultimately convicted in 2022; Brend entered a guilty plea. Victim restitution was ordered but recovery remained limited, with much of the $8.4 million dissipated through Ochoa’s personal expenditures.
EmpiresX was a cryptocurrency yield scheme operated by Brazilian nationals Emerson Faustin Pires and Flavio Gonçalves that promised investors one percent daily returns from a proprietary algorithmic trading system, defrauding at least $100 million from thousands of investors between 2020 and 2022. The scheme operated through a website, social media channels, and a structured referral program that rewarded members for recruiting new depositors. Pires and Gonçalves were charged by both the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Department of Justice; both were ultimately convicted in 2023 and sentenced to federal prison.
The scheme presented Pires as an experienced head trader with expertise in cryptocurrency arbitrage and algorithm-driven execution, and presented Gonçalves as the operational co-founder. The daily return promise — one percent per day, equivalent to approximately 3,700 percent annually on a compounding basis — was supported by fabricated trading dashboards showing consistent positive performance, screenshots of which circulated widely through the referral network that drove the scheme’s growth. No algorithmic trading system of the described capability existed; investor deposits were commingled in accounts controlled by the operators and used to pay earlier participants and to fund the operators’ personal expenditures.
When US regulators moved against the scheme in June 2022, the CFTC filed a civil complaint and the DOJ filed criminal charges simultaneously, a coordinated enforcement action that resulted in emergency asset freezes and the arrest of both principals. The parallel civil and criminal tracks reflected the scale and reach of the fraud, which had affected US-based investors across dozens of states. Pires and Gonçalves were both convicted — Pires by jury trial and Gonçalves following a guilty plea — and sentenced in 2023.