iComTech founder David Carmona has been arrested within the US.
Carmona’s arrest follows indictment by a Grand Jury within the Southern District of New York.
Along with Carmona, iComTech promoters Marco Ruiz Ochoa, Moses Valdez, Juan Arellano, David Brend and Gustavo Rodriguez have additionally been indicted and arrested.
BehindMLM reviewed iComTech in October 2018. iComTech was an MLM crypto Ponzi scheme, pitching day by day returns of as much as 2.8%.
iComTech was primarily promoted to Spanish-speaking communities throughout the US and Latin America.
At time of publication we weren’t in a position to pin down who was operating iComTech. The Ponzi scheme collapsed in mid to late 2019.
iComTech’s Ponzi advertising and marketing ruses have been the cryptocurrency mining and buying and selling cliches.
As per Carmona’s indictment;
IcomTech was a Ponzi scheme.
CARMONA and IcomTech ‘ s different Promoters weren’t buying and selling or mining cryptocurrency.
As an alternative, CARMONA, OCHOA, VALDEZ, ARELLANO, and BREND, amongst different IcomTech Promoters, used Sufferer funds to pay different Victims, to additional promote the Scheme to different Victims, and on private expenditures.
The closest iComeTech ever bought to really producing mining income was getting into right into a {hardware} settlement for advertising and marketing functions.
In or about September 2018, DAVID CARMONA and MARCO RUIZ OCHOA, the defendants, entered right into a contract on behalf of IcomTech to buy cryptocurrency mining gear from a respectable provider of such gear (the “Mining Gear Provider” ).
After getting into into the settlement, CARMONA , OCHOA , and different IcomTech Promoters started touting IcomTech’s purported funding in such {hardware} sourced from the Mining Gear Provider as a method of producing curiosity amongst Victims to put money into the Scheme.
In actuality, IcomTech didn’t meet its fee obligations to the Mining Gear Provider and by no means truly acquired any cryptocurrency mining {hardware}.
Nonetheless, CARMONA and OCHOA continued to advertise IcomTech’ s purported funding with the Mining Gear
Provider, even after representatives of the Mining Gear Provider threatened CARMONA and OCHOA with authorized motion.
For instance , in or about January 2019, OCHOA despatched CARMONA a message from a consultant of the Mining Gear Provider accusing OCHOA o f utilizing the Mining Gear Provider’s ” model for legitimacy in advertising and marketing to recruit .”
In a single textual content message obtained by the DOJ, Carmona explicitly advised Gustavo Rodriguez that
negotiations with the Mining Gear Provider have been only for appearances and that he was simply “utilizing them .”
In response, RODRIGUEZ warned CARMONA that this could solely work for a restricted time, earlier than the Mining Gear Provider came upon, however within the meantime CARMONA may earn tens of millions of {dollars}.
As iComTech started to break down in mid 2019, the corporate blamed “technical difficulties, alleged hacks, and different mishaps” for withdrawal delays.
iComTech finally went on to roll out a shitcoin exit-scam.
In or about summer time 2019, as increasingly more Victims started to complain about not with the ability to withdraw their purported earnings from the On-line Portal, which have been denoted in Bitcoin, IcomTech’s Promoters, together with DAVID CARMONA, MOSES VALDEZ, JUAN ARELLANO , and DAVID BREND, the defendants, advised Victims, in substance and partially, that IcomTech would now not be crediting Victims’ accounts with Bitcoin, however with a proprietary cryptocurrency often called “Icoms .”
IcomTech’s Promoters led Victims to consider that Icoms, which IcomTech initially supplied on the market for about a couple of cents, may
finally attain a price of roughly $1 every or extra as soon as they turned obtainable on main cryptocurrency exchanges and
accepted by corporations for fee for items and companies.In actuality, Icoms have been basically nugatory, peaking at roughly $0.01 in or in regards to the fall of 2019 on exterior exchanges and falling to a fraction of a penny thereafter.
Naturally, iComTech’s collapse posed issues for the Ponzi scheme’s promoters.
On an iComTech convention name, throughout which an investor confronted David Brend, Brend “admitted, in substance and partially, that he knew
IcomTech was a rip-off”.
In October 2019, Juan Arellano
despatched DAVID CARMONA … an audio recording through textual content message expressing issues, in substance and partially, about being introduced in entrance of america Securities and Trade Fee as a result of he (ARELLANO ) and· CARMONA have been taking part in with folks’s cash.
The DOJ concludes that by the top of 2019;
IcomTech had ceased making funds to Victims, and its chief promoters, together with DAVID CARMONA, MARCO RUIZ OCHOA, MOSES VALDEZ , JUAN ARELLANO, and DAVID BREND, the defendants, had stopped selling the Scheme and, in some cases, stopped responding to Victims altogether.
Most Victims misplaced their whole funding.
The iComTech joint indictment accuses the defendants every of 1 rely of wire fraud.
The indictment was filed underneath seal on October thirteenth, 2022.
A sealed doc was filed on October twenty first, which I consider pertains to the arrest of David Carmona and Gustavo Rodriguez.
My reasoning for that is there’s no docket entry for Carmona’s or Rodriguez’s arrest, and the indictment was unsealed on November eighth (there aren’t any filings between the Oct twenty first sealed submitting and order to unseal).
- David Brend was arrested in Florida on November eighth
- Juan Arellano was arrested in California on November eighth
- Marco Ruiz Ochoa was arrested in New Hampshire on November eighth
- Moses Valdez was arrested on November eighth (undecided the place)
Carmona made his preliminary look on November ninth, whereby he pleaded not responsible however consented to be held in detention.
Gustavo Rodriguez is scheduled to be arraigned on December 1st.
On November 14th Valdez and Brend had their preliminary appearances. Brend and Valdez each pled not responsible.
Valdez’s bond was set at $100,000, Brend’s bond was set at $400,000. Along with journey and journey doc restrictions, Valdez and Brend are
- banned from taking part in any MLM alternative;
- banned from taking part in any funding alternative;
- banned from utilizing any a couple of cryptocurrency pockets;
- required to reveal all current owned cryptocurrency wallets to Pre-trial Providers
- banned from utilizing any “privateness cash”
On November sixteenth a pre-trial convention was held.
The DOJ has been ordered to product discovery associated to the case by December sixteenth. A second pre-trial convention has been scheduled for February seventh, 2023.
Within the meantime Brend, Arellano and Valdez stay out on bond. Carmona will stay in detention. As beforehand said, Rodriguez is awaiting arraignment.
I’m not 100% positive what the present standing of Ochoa (proper) is. Primarily based on his New Hampshire docket docket, I consider he may nonetheless be in short-term detention pending arraignment.
The iComTech indictment seeks forfeiture of all ill-gotten positive aspects from the accused.
It must be famous that David Carmona seems to have nonetheless been scamming shoppers up till his arrest.
I wasn’t in a position to personally confirm however A BehindMLM reader tied Carmona to PayMoney in April 2022.
Like iComTech, PayMoney was an MLM crypto Ponzi pitching a 200% ROI. PayMoney has already collapsed.
What number of different Ponzi schemes Carmona has been behind is unclear. Ditto whether or not he’s/was nonetheless working along with his indicted iComTech accomplices.
I’ve added the iComTech felony case to BehindMLM’s calendar. Keep tuned for updates as we proceed to trace the case.
