EmpiresX

🔴 High Risk

EmpiresX illustrates how a U.S.-based crypto investment operation with Brazilian founders allegedly used the appearance of automated trading and guaranteed returns to attract large-scale investor deposits while concealing the true handling of funds. U.S. prosecutors alleged that founders Emerson Pires and Flavio Goncalves—both Brazilian nationals—laundered investor proceeds through a foreign cryptocurrency exchange, while later investor deposits were used to pay earlier participants in a Ponzi-style structure. The alleged use of an unnamed overseas exchange, pooled and commingled customer funds, false trading-account displays, and ultimately frozen withdrawals points to a deliberately opaque financial architecture designed to disguise losses, sustain confidence, and move suspected illicit proceeds across borders. Although official releases do not establish a specific Brazil-based exchange or Brazilian enforcement action, the case remains a significant U.S.–Brazil-linked example of alleged cross-border crypto-enabled fraud and international money laundering.

EmpiresX was a cryptocurrency investment platform operated through Florida-based Empires Consulting Corp. Its two co-founders, Emerson Pires and Flavio Goncalves, were Brazilian nationals, while Joshua David Nicholas, the company’s stated head trader, was based in Florida. U.S. authorities alleged that the platform used false claims about a proprietary automated trading bot and guaranteed returns to persuade investors to place funds into an unregistered investment program. The CFTC found that at least $41.6 million was pooled from more than 12,500 individuals, while the DOJ alleged the broader scheme generated approximately $100 million in investor revenue.

Countries Involved

The principal jurisdictions were the United States and Brazil. EmpiresX was operated through Empires Consulting Corp., a Florida corporation, and the CFTC stated that the company operated EmpiresX commodity pools. U.S. authorities said the business solicited investors via the EmpiresX website and videos posted on social-media platforms. Its alleged operations, investor solicitation, commodity-pool activity, securities offering, investigations, criminal indictment, and civil litigation were therefore closely tied to the United States—especially the Southern District of Florida.

Brazil is implicated because co-founders Emerson Pires and Flavio Goncalves were described by the DOJ and CFTC as Brazilian nationals. They were the individuals specifically charged in the U.S. indictment with conspiracy to commit international money laundering. The DOJ alleged that Pires and Goncalves, after obtaining funds through the falsely promoted crypto investment program, laundered investor funds using a foreign-based cryptocurrency exchange. The public DOJ announcement does not identify the exchange by name or establish, in the material reviewed, that the exchange was based in Brazil. Therefore, the accurate formulation is that the alleged laundering had a U.S.–international dimension involving Brazilian nationals, rather than an officially documented conclusion that a Brazilian exchange or Brazilian financial institution was used.

The CFTC’s later default-judgment announcement confirms the nationality and cross-border profile: it explicitly describes Pires and Goncalves as Brazilian nationals and Joshua Nicholas as a Florida resident. It also identifies Empires Consulting as the Florida corporation operating the pools. This provides documentary support for calling EmpiresX a United States/Brazil-linked case, although available official releases do not publicly describe a Brazilian prosecution, Brazilian regulatory action, or a named Brazil-based laundering channel.

Date Discovered / Reported

The U.S. enforcement record became public on June 30, 2022, when the SEC announced civil fraud charges and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida announced that a federal grand jury had indicted Pires, Goncalves, and Nicholas. The SEC and CFTC civil cases were likewise filed on June 30, 2022. These dates are best treated as the point at which the case was publicly reported by U.S. authorities, rather than the beginning of the alleged misconduct.

The CFTC stated that the fraud began approximately in September 2020. The SEC and DOJ described EmpiresX as a crypto investment platform created and promoted in the period beginning in 2020. According to the CFTC’s later court findings, Empires Consulting and the individual defendants pooled at least $41.6 million from more than 12,500 people during the relevant period. The CFTC further found that withdrawal requests were no longer honored by November 2021, an important operational milestone because it indicates the collapse or restriction of the program’s promised liquidity before public enforcement action began.

The case developed after the initial filings. On September 8, 2022, Nicholas pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud, admitting that EmpiresX had been promoted through false representations about a proprietary trading bot and “guaranteed” investment returns. In June 2023, the SEC obtained a default judgment against Pires and Goncalves. In February 2025, the CFTC announced default judgments against the two Brazilian founders and Nicholas, along with major disgorgement, penalties, and permanent registration and trading bans.

Cryptocurrency Involved

Cryptocurrency unspecified. Authorities described EmpiresX as a cryptocurrency-based investment platform and alleged the use of a foreign cryptocurrency exchange, but the cited DOJ and CFTC releases do not identify BTC, ETH, USDT, or another specific token.

Type of Crime

The EmpiresX matter involved alleged and adjudicated conduct across several financial-crime categories. The DOJ charged all three defendants with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. Pires and Goncalves were also charged with conspiracy to commit international money laundering. The criminal complaint announcement said the platform generated approximately $100 million in revenue from investors, allegedly through deceptive promotion of a crypto investment program and false claims about a proprietary trading bot capable of providing guaranteed returns.

The alleged predicate conduct was investment fraud. The DOJ said Pires, Goncalves, and Nicholas misled investors concerning EmpiresX’s bot and promised returns. The SEC alleged that the bot was fake and that manual trading generated significant losses. The CFTC later found in its civil case that the defendants made false claims about use of pool money, pool size, and participant returns. It also found that Nicholas showed participants a purportedly profitable EmpiresX account on a well-known trading platform despite EmpiresX having no account there, and that a counterfeit website was used to imitate the platform.

The laundering allegation is specifically tied to Pires and Goncalves allegedly using a foreign-based crypto exchange to process investor proceeds. The alleged Ponzi component is also relevant because early investors were reportedly paid from later investors’ deposits rather than trading profits. Nicholas admitted the Ponzi scheme’s operation as part of his securities-fraud guilty plea. Meanwhile, the CFTC found fraud, failure to register as required, and illegal commingling of commodity-pool funds. These overlapping claims show a pattern in which alleged misrepresentation generated the funds, crypto infrastructure allegedly assisted their movement, and new deposits were allegedly used to sustain false appearances of profitability and liquidity.

Entities Involved

The central corporate entity was Empires Consulting Corp., a Florida corporation that did business as EmpiresX. The CFTC identified Empires Consulting as the commodity-pool operator and stated that the company operated pools promoted under the EmpiresX name. The company allegedly accepted and pooled at least $41.6 million from more than 12,500 individuals. The CFTC later reported that Empires Consulting had been ordered to pay $64 million in monetary sanctions in connection with the fraud scheme.

The principal individuals were co-founders Emerson Pires and Flavio Goncalves, both Brazilian nationals, and Joshua David Nicholas, a Florida resident who was marketed as EmpiresX’s “Head Trader.” Pires and Goncalves were alleged to be the founders who obtained investor funds and laundered those proceeds through a foreign crypto exchange. Nicholas helped promote the operation and falsely represented its trading capability, according to the DOJ. He subsequently pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

The U.S. enforcement entities were the Department of Justice, through the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida and the DOJ Criminal Division; the FBI Miami Field Office; Homeland Security Investigations Miami; the SEC; the CFTC; and the National Futures Association, which assisted the CFTC. These are enforcement, investigative, or regulatory bodies rather than alleged wrongdoing entities. Their involvement demonstrates the multi-agency U.S. response to alleged securities fraud, commodity-pool fraud, and international money laundering.

A foreign cryptocurrency exchange is also an essential but unnamed entity category. Official DOJ material confirms that such an exchange was allegedly used, but does not identify its operator, country of incorporation, compliance status, accounts, or specific transaction routes. Naming an exchange or claiming it was Brazilian would go beyond the evidence publicly disclosed in the official releases.

PEP Involvement

N/A

Laundering Techniques Used

The clearest officially stated laundering technique was the alleged use of a foreign-based cryptocurrency exchange by Pires and Goncalves to launder investor funds. The DOJ’s June 2022 announcement expressly alleged that the two Brazilian founders routed or laundered funds obtained from investors through such an exchange. The related criminal allegation was conspiracy to commit international money laundering, which reflects the claimed cross-border movement or processing of allegedly illicit proceeds. The released statement does not identify the exchange, the crypto assets, wallets, jurisdictions used in the transfer chain, or the ultimate fiat off-ramp.

A second alleged mechanism was Ponzi-style recycling of funds. According to the DOJ, early EmpiresX investors were paid with money received from later investors. Nicholas later admitted in his guilty plea that EmpiresX used later investors’ money to pay earlier investors. Although Ponzi payments are principally a fraud-sustaining mechanism rather than automatically a money-laundering method under every legal definition, they can obscure the source of payouts, create a false impression of real investment profits, and facilitate further inflows by making the program appear functional.

The CFTC also found that Pires and Goncalves commingled pool funds, which is a critical control and traceability failure. Commingling investor money can make it harder to distinguish funds intended for legitimate trading, operational spending, distributions, and personal benefit. The CFTC found that the founders collectively retained more than $32 million in ill-gotten gains. It also found that the defendants misrepresented the use of participant money, the pool size, and returns.

Finally, the alleged creation of a fake trading-platform website helped conceal the underlying lack of genuine trading. The CFTC found that defendants used a website mimicking a recognized trading platform so participants would believe EmpiresX was actively trading their funds. This deception did not itself establish a blockchain laundering technique, but it allegedly supported the broader concealment architecture: false trading evidence encouraged deposits, delayed investor concern, and masked the absence of the represented investment activity.

Estimated Value Laundered

The official sources provide several different figures that must not be treated as interchangeable. The DOJ alleged that the global cryptocurrency-based fraud generated approximately $100 million in investor revenues. This is the broad alleged scale of money raised or generated through the scheme, not a verified calculation of the exact amount laundered through the foreign crypto exchange.

The CFTC’s February 2025 announcement states that Empires Consulting, Pires, and Goncalves accepted and pooled at least $41.6 million from more than 12,500 individuals. It further states that Pires and Goncalves collectively retained more than $32 million in ill-gotten gains. These are the clearest court-linked monetary findings in the publicly reviewed enforcement release. The $32 million figure is especially relevant to a proceeds-of-crime analysis because it represents money the CFTC says the two founders retained, but it does not prove that exactly $32 million was transferred through the unnamed foreign exchange.

The monetary relief imposed in the CFTC case was greater because it included disgorgement and civil penalties. Pires and Goncalves were ordered jointly and severally to pay more than $32 million in disgorgement and more than $96 million in civil monetary penalties. Nicholas was ordered to pay $289,000 in disgorgement and $867,000 in civil penalties. Separately, the CFTC said Empires Consulting Corp. had been ordered to pay $64 million in monetary sanctions. These sanctions are remedies and deterrent penalties—not direct transaction-volume evidence.

Therefore, the most defensible wording is: the DOJ alleged laundering of investor proceeds through a foreign crypto exchange, but official public releases do not state the precise amount laundered. The alleged scheme scale was about $100 million, the CFTC found at least $41.6 million pooled, and it found that the two Brazilian founders retained more than $32 million in ill-gotten gains.

Transaction Analysis Summary

The available public record supports a high-level flow-of-funds reconstruction, but not a wallet-level blockchain investigation. First, investors were solicited through the EmpiresX website and social-media videos with claims of a proprietary trading bot, artificial and human intelligence, and guaranteed or highly consistent returns. The CFTC found that Empires Consulting and the individual defendants accepted and pooled at least $41.6 million from over 12,500 individuals. The DOJ’s broader criminal announcement characterized the investor revenue as approximately $100 million.

Second, regulators alleged that the represented use of funds did not match actual operations. The CFTC found false statements about how participant money would be used, the size of the pools, and participant returns. It found that a webpage was presented as evidence of a profitable EmpiresX account on a prominent electronic trading platform, even though EmpiresX did not actually have an account with that platform. The defendants allegedly created a lookalike site to mislead participants into believing their funds were being traded.

Third, the DOJ alleged that Pires and Goncalves routed investor funds through an unnamed foreign cryptocurrency exchange. This is the primary reported laundering leg. The specific transaction pathways—investor wallet to exchange, wallet-to-wallet transfers, token conversions, exchange accounts, geographic endpoints, or withdrawals to banks—are not disclosed in the cited releases. A compliance or investigative report should therefore identify these as information gaps rather than fill them with conjecture.

Fourth, later investor deposits allegedly financed payments to earlier investors. Nicholas admitted this Ponzi structure in his guilty plea. By November 2021, the CFTC found, EmpiresX ceased honoring withdrawal requests. In summary, the alleged financial pattern was: deceptive solicitation → pooled investor deposits → limited or falsely represented trading → foreign-exchange routing and commingling → payouts funded by later deposits → halted withdrawals.

Regulatory/Enforcement Actions Taken

U.S. agencies pursued parallel civil and criminal action. On June 30, 2022, the DOJ announced a federal indictment against Pires, Goncalves, and Nicholas. Each was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. Pires and Goncalves were additionally charged with conspiracy to commit international money laundering. The DOJ expressly cautioned that indictments are allegations and that defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The SEC filed its civil fraud case on the same date. The SEC alleged that EmpiresX sold investments in an unregistered securities offering, falsely promoted daily returns supposedly earned through a bot or trading activity, and diverted investor money. In June 2023, the SEC obtained default judgments against Pires and Goncalves in the civil case. A default judgment is a court outcome that may arise when a defendant does not appear or otherwise defend the case; it is distinct from a criminal conviction after trial.

The CFTC also filed its complaint on June 30, 2022, alleging commodity-pool fraud and violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations. In February 2025, the CFTC announced that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida entered default judgments against Pires, Goncalves, and Nicholas. The court imposed more than $32 million in disgorgement and more than $96 million in civil monetary penalties jointly and severally against Pires and Goncalves. It also permanently barred all three individual defendants from CFTC registration and trading in CFTC-regulated markets.

Nicholas pleaded guilty on September 8, 2022 to conspiracy to commit securities fraud. The DOJ stated that he admitted participating in the fraudulent promotion of EmpiresX and the Ponzi-style use of later deposits to pay earlier investors. These outcomes demonstrate substantial U.S. regulatory and prosecutorial action. However, the public material reviewed does not describe a formal Brazilian criminal judgment, Brazili

Links to Reports / Sources

Case Title / Operation Name:

EmpiresX

Country(s) Involved:

Brazil, United States

Platform / Exchange Used:

Unnamed foreign-based cryptocurrency exchange. The DOJ alleged that Pires and Goncalves laundered investor funds through a foreign crypto exchange. No official release reviewed publicly identifies the exchange by name; therefore, Binance, KuCoin, or any Brazil-based exchange should not be attributed to the case without additional documentary evidence.

Cryptocurrency Involved:

Volume Laundered (USD est.):

Exact amount allegedly laundered: not publicly quantified. The DOJ alleged that the overall scheme generated approximately $100 million in investor revenue. The CFTC found that the pools accepted at least $41.6 million from more than 12,500 people and that Pires and Goncalves retained more than $32 million in ill-gotten gains. None of these figures should be represented as the confirmed amount moved through the foreign crypto exchange.

Wallet Addresses / TxIDs :

N/A

Method of Laundering:

Alleged exchange-based cross-border laundering, commingling, and Ponzi-style recycling of investor money. The DOJ alleged that Pires and Goncalves laundered victim funds through a foreign cryptocurrency exchange. The scheme also allegedly paid earlier investors using later investors’ deposits, obscuring the lack of legitimate returns. The CFTC found that pool money was commingled and that participants were misled through false claims about trading, returns, and the use of their funds. There is no public evidence in the cited releases of mixers, tumblers, privacy coins, NFT layering, or named stablecoin-transfer routes.

Source of Funds:

Alleged proceeds of cryptocurrency investment fraud and an unregistered investment/commodity-pool scheme. Investors were allegedly persuaded to contribute funds by representations that EmpiresX used a proprietary automated trading bot and could generate consistent or guaranteed returns. Authorities alleged that the bot claims were false, that real trading activity was not as represented, and that investor money was misappropriated, commingled, or used to make Ponzi-style payments.

Associated Shell Companies:

N/A

PEPs or Individuals Involved:

N/A

Law Enforcement / Regulatory Action:

U.S. multi-agency enforcement action. On June 30, 2022, a federal grand jury in South Florida indicted Pires, Goncalves, and Nicholas for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and securities fraud; Pires and Goncalves were additionally charged with conspiracy to commit international money laundering. The SEC filed parallel civil fraud charges. Nicholas pleaded guilty in September 2022. The SEC obtained default judgments against Pires and Goncalves in June 2023. In February 2025, the CFTC announced default judgments imposing more than $32 million in disgorgement and more than $96 million in civil monetary penalties against Pires and Goncalves, plus permanent CFTC registration and trading bans.

Year of Occurrence:

2022 — The alleged conduct began around September 2020, but the SEC, CFTC, and DOJ publicly announced their proceedings on June 30, 2022.

Ongoing Case:

Ongoing

AML Network Risk Rating:

🔴 High Risk