The DOJ has made reference to restitution for investors of the EmpiresX Ponzi scheme.
While it’s not much, I believe it’s the first we’ve seen restitution mentioned in EmpiresX fraud proceedings.
The DOJ brought up restitution on the tail end of a September 9th motion, seeking alternative victim notification.
This motion is necessary due to the extraordinary number of victims in this case, and the challenge of contacting and identifying all of them in order to accord each of the victims the customary rights.
The sheer size of EmpiresX itself is a major stumbling block.
There is an extremely large number of victims in this case and compiling a complete list of their identities, without an alternative means of victim notification, would be impossible.
The Defendant, their co-conspirators, and other promoters lured victims to invest in EmpiresX by posting videos and other material to social media.
Further, the Defendants were not the only individuals broadcasting and posting materials that promoted EmpiresX on global internet platforms.
They had many individuals and tiers of promoters beneath them who helped defraud victims in this case.
As a result, it would be very challenging for investigators, without an alternative means of victim notification, to identify each victim that was defrauded here.
In place of individually contacting EmpiresX victims, the DOJ
has launched a website to direct victims to a case-specific website where all required notices will be posted.
The Government will contact known potential victims and invite them to fill out a victim impact statement. Further, the Government plans to proactively contact thousands of other potential victims using email addresses on an EmpiresX investor list that EmpiresX counsel provided to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the context of the SEC’s civil investigation of EmpiresX.
I haven’t seen this DOJ EmpiresX website yet so I can’t provide details.
If the DOJ’s motion for alternative victim notification is granted, the DOJ asserts;
There is every reason to believe that the proposed VNS (Ozedit: victim notification service?) and notice websites will expedite the process of identifying victims and providing restitution as funds become available.
Before you ask, there is no timeline for this. You’re probably looking at a few years yet, contingent on parallel civil regulatory action filed by the SEC and CFTC.
BehindMLM marks comments asking about getting money back from scams as spam.
One particularly interesting aspect of eventual EmpiresX recovery is how the DOJ, SEC and CFTC are going to sort through and verify victim claims.
Additionally, tracing the fraud proceeds back to each victim has proven nearly impossible.
Once EmpiresX received investors’ funds, it laundered this money internationally through a collection of its cryptocurrency wallets in order to promote and conceal the underlying fraud.
Therefore, by its very design, the scheme has made identifying individual victims with precision nearly impossible. Moreover, many of the servers with the data for these wallets are located outside of the United States.
Even if investigators are able to seize this data, it will take a great deal of time and resources to review the data and identify additional victims.
Realistically, whatever restitution might eventually be available is still probably years off.
I expect the DOJ’s motion will be approved sometime this coming week. After which EmpiresX investors (victims and net-winners) will receive notification.