The Securities and Exchange Commission accused former Ameriprise dual registrant Richard Hoffman with soliciting investments from clients in a purported crypto-trading Ponzi scheme run by two twenty something fraudsters, one of whom allegedly has ties to the Colombo crime family, according to reports. The commission said Hoffman failed to disclose the fraudulent firm offered him up to $1.5 million in the form of low-interest loans in return for bringing in the investors.
According to the SEC’s complaint filed in Arizona federal court, starting in March 2019, Zima Global Ventures offered as much as $25 million in “membership units” to purportedly trade in crypto and other digital assets through its affiliated company Zima Digital Assets.
Zima was co-founded by Zach Walter and John Michael Caruso, the latter of whom called himself the “Michael Jordan of algorithmic cryptocurrency trading” and gave himself the moniker “Kryp+0 K!ng,” according to reporting from the Phoenix Business Journal. The duo pledged investors would see huge profits from their forays into crypto day trading.
To help find investors, Zima agreed to extend low-interest, unsecured loans to Hoffman, who was based in Peoria, Arizona and had been with Ameriprise since 2016.
Over the course of 2019, Hoffman convinced eight clients to invest more than $640,000 into Zima’s offer, with Hoffman receiving at least $170,000 from Zima in the loans,…
