Court Orders Man to Pay $36M for Forex and Crypto Fraud Scheme

On Friday, September 20, 2024, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that a federal court had ordered a New York man to pay over $36 million for running a fraudulent forex and digital assets scheme.

The CFTC stated that Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California had entered an order requiring William Koo Ichioka to pay $31 million in restitution to victims of his scam as well as a $5 million civil monetary penalty. Ichioka, a resident of New York who was previously based in San Francisco, had been running an investment scheme since 2018 where he falsely promised investors returns of 10% every 30 business days.

While Ichioka did invest some of the funds in foreign currency and digital assets, he was found to have commingled investor money with his own funds. The court order said he had used victims’ funds for personal expenses such as rent, jewelry, luxury cars, and more. To hide his fraudulent activity, Ichioka fabricated financial documents and account statements that inflated the value of the assets he held.

The criminal case against Ichioka revealed that in addition to the CFTC case, the Department of Justice had also charged him on June 22, 2023, with wire fraud, preparing false tax returns, securities fraud, and commodities fraud relating to the same conduct. Ichioka had pled guilty to these charges the same day. He was later sentenced to 48 months in prison, 5 years of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $5 million fine and pay $31.3 million in restitution to victims.

In resolving its enforcement action, the CFTC worked with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, the FBI, the IRS Criminal Investigations Division, and the SEC.