SEC v. Fujinaga and MRI International (ponzi schemes, 2015)

Judgment entered

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In January 2015 the SEC announced a Nevada final judgment against Edwin Fujinaga and MRI International, Inc. in a Ponzi scheme that raised hundreds of millions of dollars, mostly from investors in Japan, with $442.2 million in disgorgement, $102.1 million in interest and $20 million in penalties against each defendant.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$40m

Disgorgement

$442m

Prejudgment interest

$102m

Total relief

$584m

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

Judge Mahan's January 27, 2015 judgment follows an October 2014 summary judgment on liability finding that the defendants ran a deceitful Ponzi scheme, selling purported medical accounts receivable and using the money to repay earlier investors and fund Fujinaga's lifestyle. Disgorgement and interest are joint and several, and the two $20 million penalties total $40 million. Relief defendants remained in the case.

The release headline of more than $580 million adds disgorgement, interest and penalties; the record had left the figures blank.

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.

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. 2015-01-30 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.