Acre fines TelexFree $921,531, orders company pay back investors
Regulatory proceedings against Ympactus, the Brazilian arm of the TelexFree Ponzi scheme, began all the way back in June, 2013.
On June 19th, 2014, Public Prosecutors in the Brazilian state of Acre were granted an injunction against Ympactus.
The ruling was effectively the beginning of the end of the end of TelexFree’s operations in Brazil.
What followed was a comical amount of appeal filings by TelexFree, all of which were denied. I personally stopped following them after appeal number fourteen failed.
Based in part on a third-party audit by Ernst & Young, in September, 2015, Judge Thais Borges ruled Ympactus was a Ponzi scheme.
Judge Borges fined Ympactus $782,521, declared all Brazilian TelexFree affiliate contracts null and void and ordered the company to pay back its victims.
Following more appeals filed by TelexFree over the past two years, on July 6th Judge Borges made a final ruling on the case.
As per Judge Borges ruling, Ympactus must return the money owners Carlos Wanzeler and Carlos Costa stole from investors.
The company was also fined R$3 million ($921,531 USD) and prohibited from signing up any new investors.
TelexFree did have the option of filing appeals with a higher court, but having lost every appeal filed in Brazil to date, conceded it probably wasn’t a smart move.
Roberto Duarte, who represents Telexfree, said the company had the opportunity to continue appealing to the higher courts, but understood that it would be best to comply with the sentence and return the money to (victims).
As per a report by Globo, Ympactus victims wishing to recover their losses must hire a lawyer to file a petition on their behalf with the Acre Court of Justice.
From there any payments to investors will be subtracted from claimed losses and a final amount determined.
Judge Borges added
it is not necessary to approach the 2nd Civil Court of the District of Rio Branco to request payment.
The request can be made in the city of origin of the claimant.
According to the TJ-AC, there is no deadline to file a petition, since the judgment has already become final, which begins the execution phase of the proceeding.
Despite appealing the initial Acre injunction every step of the way since 2013, in a note supplied to Globo, Ympactus claimed being fined for being a Ponzi scheme and having to pay back investors “was a victory” for the company.
As of late June Ympactus owners Carlos Wanzeler and Carlos Costa, along with a number of accomplices, are each facing multiple counts of money laundering and evasion of foreign exchange.
That’s on top of additional money laundering charges in March, as well as federal indictments in February.
Whether Ympactus will claim victory if Wanzeler and Costa serve time remains to be seen.
Finally!
I saw people very close to me getting ensnared by TF and losing a considerable amount of money… so sad.
Glad they’re getting a chance to get (at least some of) their money back and hope this comes as a lesson to never get involved in this kind of shit again.
BTW just a bit of fun trivia… Acre is known in Brazil as the “the non-existent state” because nothing ever happens there. People joke that they have stopped in time since the dinosaur era and that if you want to see a dinosaur you should go to Acre.
Many TF associates were outraged that the whole “Telexfree ordeal” started by the ruling of a judge in Acre because of Acre’s fame, LOL.
I remember Acre copping a lot for being the “poor state” back in the day.
I invested in Sunwind Energy LLC being told it was an interest in a wind farm.
If Sunwind is an entity of Telefex does that mean it was a ponzi scheme too? Is there any way to file a claim to get my money back?
Hello!
As far as i know, this can only involve the victims from brazil, right? Not the ones from the US process. Thanks in advance for reading.