SEC v. Empirex Capital LLC and Rafael Alberto Vargas Gonzalez (ponzi schemes, 2023)

Settled

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In September 2023 the SEC charged Empirex Capital LLC and its owner Rafael Vargas with raising at least $6.6 million from 162 investors. A later SEC order records that on December 8, 2023 the court permanently enjoined Vargas by consent, and the SEC barred him from the securities industry on February 15, 2024. Money amounts and the outcome for the company are not shown.

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 Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on September 22, 2023 as release LR-25845. The complaint alleged that Empirex and its owner raised at least $6.6 million from at least 162 investors, misappropriated about $1.8 million for personal expenses, made about $1.8 million of Ponzi-like payments and issued fictitious statements.

This library tags the matter as a Ponzi scheme because the document describes returns to earlier investors paid from later investors' money, as alleged or found. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

Outcome: I did not open the court's own judgment. An SEC administrative order of February 15, 2024, accepted on Vargas's offer of settlement, records that on December 8, 2023 the Southern District of Florida entered an order permanently enjoining Vargas by consent from violating Securities Act Sections 5(a), 5(c) and 17(a), Exchange Act Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5, and Advisers Act Sections 206(1) and 206(2). In that order the Commission bars him from association with any broker, dealer, investment adviser, municipal securities dealer, municipal advisor, transfer agent or nationally recognized statistical rating organization. The order does not state any disgorgement or penalty, and I did not confirm the outcome for Empirex Capital LLC, so no money is recorded.

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. 2023-09-22 Litigation release published
2. 2023-12-08 Court enters consent injunction against Rafael Vargas (S.D. Fla.), as recorded in the SEC order of February 15, 2024
3. 2024-02-15 SEC order bars Rafael Vargas from association with brokers, dealers and investment advisers (consent)

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 order imposing remedial sanctions on Rafael Vargas

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.

Related actions

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.