FLORIDA MAN BEING SENTENCED FOR WIRE FRAUD IN CONNECTION WITH TRADING COMPANY

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida issued a press release about a Kissimmee, Florida resident being sentenced to more than seventeen years in prison after having been convicted at trial of wire fraud.

Previous Records

Michael John Alcocer Roa had previously been convicted at trial by a jury of five counts of wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343.  U.S. District Court Senior Judge Patricia A. Seitz sentenced Alocer to 210 months’ imprisonment, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release.  He is also subject to a potential restitution order.

The press release asserted that Alcocer set up a Florida corporation called Inovatrade Inc. (“Inovatrade”) in October 2008 and between 2008 and 2011, Alcocer told people they could trade foreign currencies at Inovatrade, set up managed accounts in which others could trade foreign currencies on their behalf, or earn guaranteed interest payments of approximately 15% per year or greater. Alcocer represented during this time that Inovatrade maintained all its clients’ accounts segregated, safeguarded, and protected in a trust account.

Excuses and Cash Outs

The U.S. Attorney’s Office went on to state that based on those and other representations, Inovatrade received over $7 million from customers, who were sent detailed account statements over time. But when individuals requested to withdraw their money from Inovatrade, many were unable to do so, receiving instead a litany of excuses from Alocer.

The press release stated that financial records associated with Inovatrade and Alcocer introduced at trial showed little to no actual trading took place in the Inovatrade accounts, and that Alcocer cashed out and transferred millions of dollars of that money from the Inovatrade accounts to personal accounts in the United States and in Panama.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office press release can be found at the following link:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/kissimmee-resident-sentenced-more-17-years-wire-fraud

Jeff Petersen is an attorney licensed in California and Illinois representing clients in a wide variety of regulatory enforcement actions. She can be reached in California at 858.792.3666 and in Illinois at 312.583.7488.