SEC v. Joel Castellanos (ponzi schemes, 2026)

Judgment entered

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In February 2026 the SEC filed a settled action against Joel Castellanos, who with about 42 sales agents sold at least $25.2 million of MJ Capital Funding securities without registering as a broker. He consented to $46,861.94 of disgorgement and $13,084.42 of interest, deemed satisfied by receiver collections, and a $150,000 penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$150k

Disgorgement

$46.9k

Prejudgment interest

$13.1k

Total relief

$210k

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

MJ Capital, MJ Taxes and Johanna Garcia were charged in 2021 with a fraudulent offering and Ponzi scheme of about $196 million. Castellanos is charged only with the registration provisions, Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act and Section 15(a)(1) of the Exchange Act; he earned commissions from at least 1,222 investors.

The record carried the disgorgement but omitted the interest and the $150,000 penalty.

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. 2026-02-24 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.

Related actions

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.