Ramil Palafox

Ramil Ventura Palafox (born c. 1965) is a dual United States and Philippines citizen who operated PGI Global, a cryptocurrency and foreign-exchange investment operation that federal prosecutors described as a Ponzi scheme. The company also traded under the name Praetorian Group International. Between December 2019 and October 2021, Palafox collected more than $201 million from over 90,000 investors worldwide. He represented to investors that their funds were being traded in bitcoin and currency markets at daily returns of 0.5 to 3 percent. Prosecutors alleged that most of that trading never occurred.

On September 16, 2025, Palafox pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. On February 13, 2026, U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema sentenced him to 20 years in federal prison. The court entered a restitution order of $62,692,007, the figure prosecutors used to measure investor losses net of funds spent, dissipated, or otherwise unrecoverable by the time of sentencing. The Securities and Exchange Commission brought a parallel civil case in the same district in April 2025, charging Palafox with a $198 million fraud.

Background

Palafox held citizenship in both the United States and the Philippines. He lived for a period in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he maintained at least one of the residences he purchased with investor funds. He served as the chief executive officer, chairman, and lead promoter of Praetorian Group International, roles that gave him personal control over the flow of investor funds and the public presentation of the company.

Public records and court filings provide limited detail about his personal and professional life before the formation of PGI Global. The criminal case against him centers on approximately two years of activity, from late 2019 through the fall of 2021, during which the operation collected and disbursed investor money. His dual citizenship and the company's international reach complicated the investigation, which ultimately required coordination between the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Praetorian Group International

Praetorian Group International, marketed to the public as PGI Global, presented itself as a crypto-asset and foreign-exchange trading company capable of generating consistent, high-yield returns for ordinary investors. The pitch was straightforward: investors handed over bitcoin or cash, and Palafox represented that an automated, artificial-intelligence-driven trading platform would deploy those funds across currency and cryptocurrency markets. He publicly advertised a 200 percent return on investment and promised daily payouts ranging from 0.5 to 3 percent.

The company was structured around a multi-level marketing model that rewarded existing members for recruiting new ones. Members purchased tiered membership packages and earned commissions based on both the package level they held and the number of new investors they brought in. To qualify for a recruitment bonus, a member was required to bring in at least two new investors within a 30-day window. Commission rates escalated at each tier of the structure. Sapphire-level members earned 8 percent on direct referrals; Ruby members earned 10 percent; Emerald members earned 12 percent; and Diamond members, at the apex of the pyramid, earned 15 percent on direct referrals plus residual commissions on investors recruited by the people below them in the hierarchy. This structure created powerful financial incentives for existing members to recruit aggressively, driving rapid growth across the United States, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and other countries.

PGI Global gave each investor access to an online portal that displayed account balances and purportedly accruing returns. The numbers shown on those screens were not tied to any real trading gains. The SEC conducted a review of the company's actual trading activity and found no evidence that PGI Global generated income through any legitimate trading or investment activity during the period in question. The portal was, in effect, a display of fictional balances designed to keep investors from withdrawing funds or raising alarms while new money continued to flow in.

The operation extended well beyond the United States. Palafox ran a parallel arm in the United Kingdom between July 2020 and February 2021, which took in approximately £612,425 from British investors. The Philippine market was also a significant source of investors, consistent with Palafox's dual citizenship and his personal connections in that country. In total, more than 90,000 investors across multiple continents participated in the scheme.

The Scheme

PGI Global functioned as a classic Ponzi scheme. Money received from new investors was used to pay the returns and referral commissions promised to earlier participants. There was no underlying engine of genuine profit: no algorithmic trading platform, no AI-driven arbitrage, and no legitimate investment strategy of any kind.

The intake of investor funds was substantial. From December 2019 to October 2021, PGI Global collected more than $201 million in total. That figure broke down to $30,295,289 in fiat currency and at least 8,198 bitcoin valued at $171,498,528 at the relevant market prices. As with most Ponzi schemes, a portion of incoming funds was used to satisfy withdrawal requests and referral payments to earlier investors, which sustained the illusion of a functioning business and delayed collapse.

Palafox diverted a substantial share of investor money to himself. Court records show he spent approximately $3 million acquiring roughly 20 luxury vehicles, a fleet that included models from Porsche, Lamborghini, and Ferrari. He spent more than $6 million purchasing four residential properties in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. He paid approximately $329,000 for penthouse suites at high-end hotels. An additional roughly $3 million went toward designer clothing, watches, and jewelry from retailers including Gucci, Cartier, and Rolex. In total, the SEC found that Palafox misappropriated more than $57 million of investor funds for his personal benefit.

He also transferred significant sums to family members. Court records document that Palafox transferred at least $800,000 in cash and an additional 100 bitcoin to a family member during the period the scheme was operational.

The scheme collapsed in late 2021 when PGI Global ceased making payments to investors. At that point, the balances shown on investors' portal accounts, representing returns they had been promised but never received in withdrawable funds, became worthless. Because a portion of the $201 million collected had been paid out to earlier investors as fictitious returns and referral commissions, and because Palafox had spent tens of millions on personal expenditures, the pool of recoverable assets was substantially smaller than the total amount raised. Prosecutors calculated net investor losses at $62,692,007, which became the basis for the court's restitution order.

Investigation

The investigation into PGI Global was conducted jointly by Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The international scope of the scheme, spanning the United States, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and other jurisdictions, added complexity to the investigation, which required tracing bitcoin transactions and fiat wire transfers across multiple financial systems and legal frameworks.

The SEC separately developed a civil investigation running in parallel with the criminal inquiry. The Commission filed its civil complaint on April 23, 2025, in the Eastern District of Virginia, which is the same court where the criminal case was prosecuted. The timing of that filing, several months before the September 2025 guilty plea, reflects the common federal practice of filing civil securities charges concurrent with or shortly before the resolution of a criminal matter involving the same conduct.

Charges

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed its civil complaint on April 23, 2025, charging Palafox with a $198 million crypto-asset and foreign-exchange fraud. The SEC alleged that Palafox offered and sold unregistered securities in violation of Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act of 1933, and that he violated the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws, including Section 17(a) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder. The Commission further alleged that he misappropriated more than $57 million of investor funds for personal use. The SEC's civil case sought disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, civil monetary penalties, and a permanent injunction barring Palafox from future participation in the securities markets.

The parallel criminal case charged Palafox with wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1343 and money laundering. Wire fraud covers schemes to defraud carried out through interstate or foreign electronic communications, a standard that encompassed PGI Global's reliance on online investor portals, cryptocurrency transfers, wire transactions, and digital promotional campaigns. The money laundering charge addressed Palafox's movement and concealment of the proceeds of the fraud through purchases of real estate, vehicles, and other assets.

On September 16, 2025, Palafox pleaded guilty to both charges before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The plea agreement carried a statutory maximum exposure of 40 years in federal prison, 20 years for wire fraud and 20 years for money laundering, and set the restitution figure at $62,692,007. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Jack Morgan, Zoe Bedell, and Annie Zanobini of the Eastern District of Virginia.

Sentencing

Palafox appeared for sentencing on February 13, 2026, before U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia. Judge Brinkema imposed a term of 20 years in federal prison, equal to the statutory maximum on each individual count, to be served concurrently. The court also entered a restitution order of $62,692,007, holding Palafox personally liable to the victims of the scheme for that amount.

The 20-year sentence fell below the 40-year combined statutory maximum available under the plea, but represented one of the longer custodial terms imposed in a cryptocurrency fraud case in the United States up to that point. Following sentencing, Palafox was remanded to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The specific facility to which he was designated has not been publicly disclosed.

The SEC's parallel civil case continued on its own procedural track. The Commission's complaint remained pending, with the SEC seeking disgorgement of profits, civil penalties, and a permanent bar on Palafox's participation in the offer or sale of any security or crypto-asset security.

See Also

• Cryptocurrency fraud
• Ponzi scheme
• Wire fraud
• Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions