Florida Scam Artist Pleads Guilty to $100 Million Fraud

Florida resident Joshua David Nicholas has pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud. He is charged for running a Ponzi scheme that took crypto traders for some $100 million.

In a two-year period, Nicholas presented himself as a trader at the bogus crypto investment company EmpiresX. He claimed that he was an expert in the crypto space and offered investors a fake trading bot.

Along with the coconspirators, Emerson Sousa Pires and Flavio Mendes Goncalves, Nicholas took most of the investors’ money, with only a portion of it that was actually used for (unsuccessful) crypto trading on the investors’ behalf. He bought a Lamborghini and made payments on a second house.

In the meantime, Pires and Goncalves have fled back to their native country, Brazil. As for Nicholas, he is facing up to five years in jail.