Former NYPD Officer Defrauded Currency Investors, Solicited Nearly $5M

NEW YORK CITY— A former NYPD officer has pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection to his role as a chief operating officer of a foreign exchange investment fund, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

James Rodriguez, 38, of Queens, is accused of lying to investors and lost most of the $4.8 million put into his forex investment fund, Technical Trading Team, prosecutors said.

“With this guilty plea, the defendant has accepted responsibility for taking advantage of close friends and family members and defrauding them out of millions of dollars,” said United States Attorney Breon Peace.

In total, $3.5 million of those funds have not been paid back to the investors.

Rodriguez promised investors that the fund would have a “loss reserve account” that could
be used to repay investors if the company lost money trading and he would never risk
more than 1% of assets under management on any single trade.

Each of these promises was meant to assure investors that their investments would be safe. However, Rodriguez and a co-conspirator broke those promises and lost more and more money in the forex markets, prosecutors said.

Rodriguez used new investor money to pay older investors the promised investment returns.

“The defendant deceived retail investors into investing with his company based on false promises that he would invest their money in accordance with clear guardrails and that he had left the NYPD because of his success as a trader. In reality, there were no guardrails, he resigned from the NYPD in disgrace, and he lost most of the money, inflicting substantial harm on his victims," Peace added.

Rodriguez previously served as an NYPD officer for seven years. He resigned from the NYPD after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor crime and incurring several disciplinary infractions.