The federal prosecutor’s office in Puerto Rico has charged two men — U.S. citizen Michael Shannon Sims (48 years old) and Dominican Republic citizen Juan Carlos Reynoso (57 years old) — with creating and managing a large-scale international fraud scheme known as OmegaPro. The losses from the activities of this platform are estimated to exceed $650 million.
This is reported by Business • Media
OmegaPro: How the Fraud Scheme Operated
OmegaPro positioned itself as an investment platform that offered users the opportunity to purchase special investment packages with the promise of extraordinarily high returns — up to 300% in 16 months. Investors’ money, primarily accepted in cryptocurrencies, was controlled by the company’s executives through personal digital wallets. The organizers claimed that the investments were working in the forex market thanks to a team of “elite traders.”
Michael Shannon Sims publicly represented OmegaPro, actively promoting the advantages and reliability of the project, as well as the professionalism of the team. Juan Carlos Reynoso was responsible for spreading the project in Latin America and parts of the U.S., particularly in Puerto Rico, and disseminated false information about the company’s licenses and its “independence” from the laws of any country.
Marketing, Scheme Collapse, and Criminal Charges
To attract new investors, the organizers employed lavish marketing strategies: they hosted large-scale events, displayed the OmegaPro logo on the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai, and posted photos on social media featuring luxury cars and vacations. When reports of a hacker attack on the platform emerged in January 2023, the executives promised to return funds to investors through a new project — Broker Group. However, investors were unable to withdraw their assets from either platform, and all funds were transferred to a cryptocurrency wallet controlled by OmegaPro’s management.
“According to the investigation, thousands of investors lost over $650 million.”
Law enforcement has charged both suspects with conspiracy to commit fraud using electronic communications, as well as conspiracy to commit money laundering. Each of them could face up to 20 years in prison for each count, totaling up to 40 years in prison.
Similar cryptocurrency fraud has previously been reported in Spain, where losses reached €460 million, and the number of victims is in the thousands.