CFTC Charges Scam Crypto Broker Platform with Fraud and Misappropriation in an Online Romance Scam

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The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced a civil enforcement action against Debiex, a scam crypto broker platform, accusing it of conducting a romance scam. The CFTC alleges that Debiex deceived about five victims, primarily targeting Asian Americans, leading to a loss of $2.3 million. The scheme involved establishing romantic or friendly relationships to build trust and then luring victims into opening and funding Debiex trading accounts.

The operation also implicated Zhāng Chéng Yáng (Zhang) as a relief defendant suspected of being a money mule in the fraud. The CFTC’s ongoing litigation aims to secure restitution for victims and enforce penalties against Debiex for violating the Commodity Exchange Act and its regulations.

According to the complaint, Debiex operated publicly accessible internet domains located at https://www.debiex.com and/or https://www.debiex.net, created around March 12, 2022, and accessible to customers in the U.S.

Debiex used the websites to target Asian Americans with a sophisticated fraudulent scheme involving purported crypto trading. The scheme involved the coordinated efforts of three groups:

Solicitors: contacted customers via at least one U.S.-based social media platform and pretended to befriend or romance the customers to solicit them to open and fund trading accounts with Debiex;
Customer service: purported to set up and service Debiex trading accounts on behalf of the customers and
Money mules: These include, but are not limited to, Zhang, whose digital asset wallets were used by Debiex to accept and/or misappropriate customer funds. Money mules are people who, at someone else’s direction, receive and move money obtained through fraud or other crimes.

As further alleged, instead of using the funds to trade on behalf of the customers, as promised, Debiex misappropriated the customers’ digital assets. The Debiex websites merely mimicked the features of a legitimate live trading platform, and the “trading accounts” on the websites were a complete ruse. No actual trading took place on the customers’ behalf.