A former New York City cop-turned-fund manager has been charged with defrauding investors.
An indictment was unsealed today in a Brooklyn court charging an ex-NYPD officer Jason Rodriguez with conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with an investment fund he founded in 2020.
According to U.S. authorities, Rodriguez founded an investment fund, Technical Trading Team, LLC, after leaving the NYPD in 2020. The fund was pitched to investors as a foreign exchange-focused fund, with Rodriguez directing its trading and serving as chief operating officer.
“Rodriguez promised investors that Technical Trading Team would have a “loss reserve account” that could be used to repay investors if the company lost money trading, that Rodriguez would never risk more than 1% of assets under management on any single trade and would not hold positions open overnight,” authorities said.
However, they alleged that “Rodriguez and Technical Trading Team broke all of these promises and as Rodriguez lost more and more money in the forex markets, he used new investor money to pay older investors promised investment returns.”
Ultimately, they said investors put approximately US$4.8 million into the fund, and about US$3.5 million has not been returned to investors.
Rodriguez was arrested and charged today. The allegations have not been proven, and he is presumed to be innocent.
“As alleged, the victims trusted Rodriguez with millions of dollars for what they were assured would be safe investments, supported by the defendant’s claim that he had quit the NYPD because he had become so successful at trading, which was untrue,” said Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a release.
“Rodriguez also falsely promised the victims that their investments would be safe because there would be guardrails over his trading activity to limit the risks. In reality, Rodriguez ignored those guardrails and lost millions in investor funds and also misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars which he used to pay for luxury car rentals, travel and other personal expenses,” he added.