New York preacher Eddy Alexandre sentenced for cryptocurrency scam

While the fraud was underway between September 2021 and May 2022, Alexandre preached at congregations of Haitian immigrants. 

“The community considers Eddy Alexandre a sociopath, a financial terrorist who used the church and the bible to terrorize them,” wrote a victim in a letter to U.S. District Judge John Cronan, who sentenced Alexandre for just a year less than prosecutors sought.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, whose office prosecuted Alexandre, said the sentence demonstrates that “Cryptocurrency executives who lie and cheat their customers will be held to account for their crimes.”

Alexandre immigrated to New York from Haiti in 1998, found work as a computer technician and later got into cybersecurity. Driven by what he described as a desire to help the Haitian people and personal interest in investing, in September 2021 he launched a firm in Midtown called EminiFX.

Church had been part of Alexandre’s life since he was young. His father was a Seventh-Day Adventist pastor who took him on missions to rural parts of Haiti when he was young, according to a letter from a family member to the court.

Alexandre’s victims were mostly far from wealthy, prosecutors said, but invested their own money and found others who believed his promise of at least 5% weekly returns, which would have doubled their money in five months. 

Alexandre’s firm invested a large percentage of client funds in Bitcoin. Over the course of the scam the value of Bitcoin fell by around 26%. Alexandre was arrested in May of 2022 and this past February pleaded guilty to one count of commodities fraud.

“He is extremely sorry,” Alexandre’s lawyer, Emil Bove, wrote in a court filing.

About $170 million of investor money has been recovered, according to court filings, but Alexandre clients still face more than $50 million in losses. It is unclear if the remaining funds will be recovered.

Victims include a 68-year-old woman who invested her life savings and is now homeless and a single mother of two who is dealing with foreclosure proceedings after mortgaging her house, according to court records.

This story has been updated to remove references to specific churches.