Former NYPD Officer Turned Forex Investor Sentenced to 36 Months in Prison for Wire Fraud Scheme

BROOKLYN, NY - Earlier today, in federal court in Brooklyn, former New York City Police Department officer Jason Rodriguez was sentenced by United States District Judge Ramon E. Reyes, Jr. to 36 months in prison for his role in perpetrating a fraudulent investment scheme. Rodriguez, along with his co-conspirator Edwin Carrion, induced over 20 individuals to invest over $4 million with their foreign exchange (forex) trading fund, Technical Trading Team LLC, based on a slew of misrepresentations. In addition to the term of imprisonment, Judge Reyes ordered Rodriguez to pay a forfeiture money judgment of $748,394.00 and to pay restitution of $2,305,256.00. Rodriguez pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in November 2024.

The sentence was announced by Joseph Nocella, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and Christopher G. Raia, Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI).

"Today, the defendant received just punishment for defrauding over 20 individual investors out of millions of dollars of hard-earned money. The defendant violated the trust his clients placed in him by falsely promising them a safe investment opportunity," stated United States Attorney Nocella. "Our Office and our law enforcement partners will continue to pursue justice for victims of financial crime who fall prey to individuals like Rodriguez who advance their greedy desires at the expense of others."\

According to court filings and the defendant's admissions, Rodriguez and Carrion founded Technical Trading Team in the spring of 2020 and Rodriguez served as the company's Chief Operating Officer. Rodriguez had sole trading authority over the vast majority of the nearly $5 million raised by Technical Trading Team from over 20 individual investors. Rodriguez and Carrion promised investors annual investment returns ranging from 18% to 24% and convinced investors to invest based on a number of material misrepresentations. Rodriguez and Carrion promised investors that they were making a safe investment; in reality, Rodriguez disregarded numerous safeguards that he promised investors were in place to protect their investments. For example, though Rodriguez and Carrion promised investors that Technical Trading Team had a "loss reserve account" comprised of funds that would not be traded and could be used to repay investors in the event of market losses, no such "loss reserve account" ever existed. Rodriguez also promised investors that Technical Trading Team would never expose more than 1% of Technical Trading Team investors' funds to market risk at any given time, only to ignore that safeguard as well. Further, Rodriguez promised investors that Technical Trading Team would not hold trading positions open overnight, which Rodriguez ignored on multiple occasions, including once holding a trade open from February 2021 until April 2022, resulting in a catastrophic loss of over $150,000, representing approximately 12.61% of Technical Trading Team's assets. Once it became clear to Rodriguez that Technical Trading Team could not pay its investors their promised returns using trading profits, Rodriguez turned Technical Trading Team into a Ponzi scheme and began using money from new investors to pay older investors their interest payments and principal redemptions.

The government's case is being handled by the Office's Business and Securities Fraud Section. Assistant United States Attorney Benjamin Weintraub is in charge of the prosecution, with assistance from Paralegal Specialist Liam McNett.

The Defendant:

JASON RODRIGUEZ
Age: 38
Bellerose, New York

E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 24-CR-79