SEC v. Bernardo Mendia-Alcaraz and Toltec Capital LLC (ponzi schemes, 2026)

Judgment entered

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In 2026 the SEC announced a final judgment against Bernardo Mendia-Alcaraz and Toltec Capital, who made Ponzi-like payments to investors, holding them liable for $2,207,524 of disgorgement and $150,866 of interest, with a $2,207,524 civil penalty on Mendia-Alcaraz.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$2.2m

Disgorgement

$2.2m

Prejudgment interest

$151k

Total relief

$4.6m

Alleged gain

—

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The complaint alleged that the defendants raised about $3.3 million with false statements and used investor money for Ponzi-like payments to other investors and for personal expenses. Relief defendants Fondo Toltec and Ramirez Cano are liable for parts of the disgorgement.

The record carried the disgorgement and interest but no penalty; the release states that the judgment orders Mendia-Alcaraz to pay a civil penalty equal to the disgorgement.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes money from later investors being used to pay earlier ones. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Ponzi schemes — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2026-01-06 Litigation release published

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEC litigation release

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.