A federal court in Florida has ordered a Louisiana man and an Arkansas woman to pay $15,732,455 in restitution, or about $15.7 million, for a trading scheme called Fundsz, and the estate of a third defendant who has died is giving up his personal residence. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced the order on September 30. The restitution is paired with a civil penalty of nearly the same size, so the total the two living defendants were ordered to pay is far larger than the restitution alone.
Who the court ordered to pay, and how much
According to the CFTC’s release of September 30, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida entered a default judgment against Brian Early of Louisiana and Alisha Ann Kingrey of Arkansas. A default judgment is typically entered when defendants do not contest the case. The release describes Early and Kingrey as board members and social media moderators for Fundsz. The court ordered them to pay $15,732,455 in restitution and a civil monetary penalty of $15,752,455, for a combined $31,484,910.
The restitution is the part aimed at making victims whole; the penalty is a punishment paid to the government. The two figures are close but not identical, with the penalty $20,000 higher, and a reader comparing them should not assume the full $31 million is available for victims. The release does not state how the restitution will be distributed or to how many people.
The estate of Rene Larralde and the house
Two other defendants are resolved by consent orders. Rene Larralde is listed as deceased, so his estate is the party in the case. The release identifies Larralde as the founder of Fundsz and says the court found he misappropriated investor funds for personal use. Under the order, the estate, represented by Rachel Larralde, relinquishes more than $2.7 million in assets plus his personal residence, bought with investor funds according to the CFTC, all to a court-appointed receiver. A receiver is an officer the court puts in charge of collecting and handling assets, in order to pay what is owed.
The fourth defendant named in the release is Juan Pablo Valcarce of Florida, who also resolved the case by consent order. The CFTC says he is permanently enjoined from violating the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations and is permanently barred from registering with the agency and from trading. Fundsz itself is described as an unincorporated entity with a website.
What Fundsz promised and what the CFTC says was false
The release says Fundsz told participants that their money would be traded according to a proprietary algorithm and could be withdrawn in 180 days with interest. The CFTC says the defendants misrepresented expected profits and historical trading performance in digital assets and precious metals. The release adds that when Early and Kingrey learned of the CFTC’s investigation, they began walking back their profitability claims and worked to eliminate Fundsz’s social media presence.
A fixed withdrawal date, a stated rate of interest and a secret trading formula are the pitch details the release highlights. They are worth noting because a defined timeline and a technical-sounding method can make an unregistered pool look like an ordinary investment account. The release gives no count of victims and no fraud period. The CFTC’s August 11, 2023 complaint announcement said Fundsz solicited from October 2020 and claimed more than 14,000 participants, advertising over 3% weekly returns and a $2,500 stake growing to $1 million in 48 months. Those were allegations then, and the case took three years to reach this judgment.
Why an order is not the same as money collected
A restitution order sets what is owed; it does not by itself deliver cash to anyone. The recovery depends on what the defendants and the receiver can actually collect. In this case the identified source is the Larralde estate’s assets and house, and the release does not say how much more can be recovered from Early and Kingrey. The amounts in the release are therefore ordered figures, not payments made.
The same agency’s September 25 complaint against Cash FX Group shows the contrast between an allegation and an order. In that separate case, the CFTC alleges a scheme that solicited more than $950 million and caused participant losses of at least $406 million, with promised returns of up to 15% weekly. Those are claims in a civil complaint, not findings, and CFTC Director of Enforcement David I. Miller described the action as reflecting the agency’s commitment to “addressing fraud wherever we find it.” The Fundsz order is a finished judgment; the Cash FX filing is the start of a case.
Reports of investment fraud can be filed with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, which lists investment fraud and cryptocurrency crimes among the reports it accepts. For this case, the controlling record is the CFTC release of September 30, 2026, which sets out the restitution, the penalty and the surrender of the Larralde house.
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This piece was produced with AI assistance and checked against the CFTC releases it cites.
