Florida Man Runs $328 Million Crypto Ponzi — Promised 8% Monthly Returns With a Straight Face

In today's episode of "things that were obviously a scam from day one," federal prosecutors have arrested Christopher Alexander Delgado, a 34-year-old from Apopka, Florida, for allegedly running a $328 million crypto Ponzi scheme through his company Goliath Ventures. The pitch was simple. Give us your money, we'll put it in crypto "liquidity pools," and you'll earn a guaranteed 3% to 8% per month. Guaranteed. Low risk. In crypto. If those three phrases in the same sentence don't immediately trigger your fight-or-flight response, we need to talk. According to prosecutors, Delgado ran this operation from January 2023 through January 2026 — three full years. Instead of actually investing the funds, he did what every Ponzi operator does: used new investor money to pay returns to earlier investors. The classic musical chairs of financial fraud, except when the music stops, everyone's broke except the guy at the top. Delgado now faces wire fraud and money laundering charges, with a maximum penalty of 30 years. Which, to be fair, is about 3% to 8% of the rest of his life — fitting, given the returns he was promising. This isn't an isolated case either. According to TRM Labs, pyramid and Ponzi schemes pulled in approximately $6.1 billion in victim funds globally in 2025. That's a 49% increase from the previous year. The space is getting worse at this, not better. Here's the uncomfortable truth that bears repeating: if someone promises you guaranteed monthly returns in crypto, they're either lying or they've discovered something that the entire global financial system hasn't. And it's always the first one.