Three Canadian DFRF Enterprises promoters have been fined $956,000.
The enforcement motion, initiated by the British Columbia Securities Fee, comes eight years after US authorities took motion in opposition to the Ponzi scheme.
DFRF Enterprises was a gold mining themed Ponzi scheme run by Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho.
Sabrina Ling Huei Wei, Justin Colin Villarin and James Bernard Regulation, are British Columbia residents alleged to have promoted DFRF Enterprises.
Of observe is DFRF Enterprises not being an MLM Ponzi scheme.
On the heels of TelexFree’s 2014 collapse, BehindMLM was inundated with enquiries from Brazilian readers involved about members of the family.
A civil RICO class-action filed in February 2015 marked the beginning of BehindMLM’s DFRF Enterprises protection.
The SEC would go on to file fraud fees in opposition to DFRF Enterprises and Filho in July 2015.
Parallel prison fees introduced by the DOJ noticed Filho arrested in Florida a couple of weeks later.
Filho was finally declared unfit to face trial. His indictment was dismissed in November 2018.
The SEC secured default judgment in opposition to DFRF Enterprises for $17.9 million in 2019.
In October 2022, the BCSC revealed it had been investigating its personal DFRF Enterprises fraud case since 2015.
The enforcement motion started in 2015 when BCSC investigators – appearing on a tip – posed as buyers to attend a presentation for DFRF at a downtown Vancouver lodge.
Attendees have been instructed to count on a month-to-month return of as much as 15 per cent on their membership in curiosity, and that their principal was assured by insurance coverage.
Authorized proceedings in opposition to the three Defendants started in April 2021.
Findings of the BCSC case discovered defendants Sabrina Wei, Justin Villarin and James Regulation
solicited B.C. buyers, organized occasions and offered membership models to Massachusetts-based DFRF Enterprises, LLC and Florida-based DFRF Enterprises, LLC.
Buyers have been promised terribly excessive, no-risk returns on supposedly profitable gold mining operations in Mali and Brazil. In actuality, DFRF’s solely supply of cash was buyers.
Talking on Wei’s, Villarin’s and Regulation’s victims, the BCSC wrote;
Some misplaced tens of 1000’s of {dollars} and broken relationships with mates and kin whom they referred to DFRF.
A landscaper who misplaced roughly $60,000 testified that he went bankrupt, nearly misplaced his condominium, and has nonetheless not financially recovered; some kin, whom he satisfied to spend money on DFRF, now not belief him.
“We don’t get collectively anymore for… Christmas or New Yr’s,” he stated.
Because of their promotion of the DFRF Enterprises Ponzi scheme, on March 2nd, 2023:
- Sabrina Wei was ordered to pay $90,000 in restitution and a $500,000 penalty
- Justin Villarin was ordered to pay $15,718 in restitution and a $200,000 penalty
- James Regulation was ordered to pay a $150,000 penalty
All three have been additionally banned from collaborating in B.C.’s funding marketplace for various quantities of time: Wei’s ban is everlasting, whereas Villarin was banned for 25 years and Regulation for 20 years.
Daniel Filho is banned for all times from conducting any enterprise associated to securities in BC.
Following dismissal of his indictment, Filgo disappeared.
There have been a couple of makes an attempt, presumably by restoration scammers, to additional fleece DFRF Enterprises buyers.
The most recent instance I used to be capable of finding was a defunct FaceBook account, on which there’s a restoration rip-off publish from June 2022:
To the very best of my data, apart from some embarrassing replies from gullible victims, nothing additional got here of the publish.