PGI CEO faces 40-year sentence in $200M Bitcoin Ponzi case

Praetorian Group International (PGI) CEO Ramil Ventura Palafox has pleaded guilty in Virginia to defrauding investors and money laundering charges. The charges were tied to a $200 million Ponzi scheme that defrauded at least 90,000 investors globally.

Palafox, 60, is a dual citizen of the U.S. and the Philippines. He served as the CEO of PGI from December 2019 to October 2021. During that period, the court found that he solicited more than $201 million from investors, including over $30 million in fiat and more than 8,100 BTC valued at $171 million at the time; currently, the value is close to $1 billion.

U.S. DOJ reveals that Palafox used investor money for self-enrichment 

According to the court statement, Palafox promised daily returns of 0.5% to 3% via an alleged Bitcoin trading program, but PGI did not operate at a scale that could generate such profits.  The filings revealed that the scheme relied on investor funding from new participants to pay earlier investors. Estimated losses for investors were around $62.7 million. 

The statement revealed that Palafox used significant amounts of the investor’s money for self-enrichment. He spent approximately $3 million on 20 luxury vehicles and acquired homes in Las Vegas and Los Angeles worth more than $6 million. He also spent roughly $329,000 on a penthouse, expensive jewelry, clothing, and home furnishings.

According to the court statement, he transferred at least $800,000 in fiat and 100 BTC, worth about $3.3 million, to a family member. 

PGI allegedly operated another investor portal that showed fraudulent balances and fictitious returns, a plot to lure investors with the false impression that their investments were growing securely. The Ponzi scheme was exposed after mounting pressure from investor withdrawal requests that could not be sorted. 

Prosecutors in the case include Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jack Morgan, Zoe Bedell, and Annie Zanobini. U.S. Attorney Erik S. Siebert, FBI Special Agent in Charge Reid Davis, and IRS-CI Special Agent in Charge Kareem A. Carter announced the plea after it was accepted by U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema.

Some analysts have described the PGI scheme as a textbook Ponzi scheme.

Dana Dadybayo, a research and strategy lead at Unstoppable Wallet, compared the case to BitConnect, PlusToken, and OneCoin. He revealed that PGI depended on a multi-level marketing model, promising unrealistic returns that can only be funded by new investor inflows. He highlighted that the scheme offers a lesson to regulators that the real issue is fraudulent behavior and not the underlying technology. He urged for strong financial literacy, red-flag awareness, and international coordination. 

Former PGI boss to be sentenced in February 2026 

The PGI CEO will be sentenced on February 3, 2026, to a possible 40 years in prison. He also agreed to pay the $62.7 million restitution. However, if U.S. sentencing guidelines are considered, Palafox may receive a lower maximum sentence than 40 years. 

Similar textbook Ponzi schemes have defrauded investors before, such as the BitConnect scheme. Cryptopolitan reported that BitConnect lured investors with promises of large returns via a non-existent trading bot. Its native token surged to nearly $400 before collapsing to $30 following regulatory crackdowns in Texas and North Carolina. The SEC prosecuted 12 promoters related to the scheme, which resulted in multimillion-dollar penalties. 

The U.S. Department of Justice compensated the victims of the BitConnect scam through the sale of the $56 million seized in digital assets from Glenn Arcaro, who was the lead promoter of the scam. The DOJ indicted him for defrauding global investors out of over $2 billion. He was later sentenced in January 2022 to 38 months in prison for his role in the Ponzi scheme. 

Bitcoin is trading at $117,183.50, up 0.6% over the past 24 hours. The token has experienced a 25.39% YTD despite facing competition from Altcoins in the past few months, fueled by institutional inflows. BTC maintains the largest market cap ahead of Ethereum, with $2.33 trillion. 

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