SEC v. DFRF Enterprises, Filho and others (ponzi schemes, 2015)

Judgment entered

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The SEC's June 2015 pyramid and Ponzi case over the purported gold-mining companies DFRF Enterprises ended with final judgments against every defendant, the last on 30 January 2020 in the District of Massachusetts. The SEC says the judgments total more than $29 million in disgorgement and interest and more than $2.9 million in penalties. Most were entered by default.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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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 SEC alleges DFRF claimed to run more than 50 gold mines in Brazil and Africa but earned its revenue only from membership sales, which rose from under $100,000 in June 2014 to over $4 million in March 2015, and that Filho withdrew over $6 million for luxury cars. The court froze about $2 million on June 30 and extended the freeze on July 13. Prosecutors charged Filho with wire fraud.

The record listed a single defendant ending "et al."; the release names the others.

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

Final judgments came in stages. On 14 May 2019 the court entered judgment against promoter Heriberto Perez Valdes ($657,840 in disgorgement and interest and a $551,403 penalty), and on 5 June 2019 against the two DFRF companies ($17,840,352 in disgorgement and interest, joint and several, and a $775,000 penalty on each). On 22 October 2019 it entered default judgments against the orchestrator Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho and four promoters, ordering Filho to pay $10,269,827 in disgorgement and interest and a $1 million penalty. On 30 January 2020 a consent judgment against the last defendant, Jeffrey Feldman, ordered $151,131 but waived all but $15,000 because of his finances. The SEC states that it has now obtained final judgments against all defendants charged, totalling more than $29 million in disgorgement and interest and more than $2.9 million in penalties; because that penalty total does not match the sum of the individual penalties in the releases, no money figures are stored here.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary documents linked above. This page summarises the structured record and does not reproduce them.

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. 2015-07-23 Litigation release published
2. 2020-01-30 Final judgment against the last defendant, Jeffrey Feldman; all defendants resolved (D. Mass.)

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
• SEC litigation release 24729 (final judgment against Feldman; all defendants resolved)
• SEC litigation release 24652 (judgments of 22 Oct 2019)
• SEC litigation release 24496 (judgments against Valdes and the DFRF entities)

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 3 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.