JPMorgan Chase sued for allegedly enabling a large-scale Ponzi scheme

A class action lawsuit has been filed against JPMorgan Chase for allegedly enabling a large-scale Ponzi scheme. The fraudulent scheme has been linked to Goliath Ventures, whose CEO was arrested at the end of February. 

A group of investors claimed JPMorgan Chase enabled a massive cryptocurrency fraud, headed by Goliath Ventures, Inc. The scheme reportedly used bank accounts with JPMorgan Chase. 

The case was filed by Robby Alan Steele on behalf of all affected participants who were drawn into Goliath Ventures. 

Reportedly, JPMorgan Chase ignored worrying transactions and allowed funds to be moved through bank accounts and Coinbase wallets. In total, the Ponzi scheme took at least $328M from an estimated count of 2,000 investors. 

JPMorgan Chase was the main institution for Goliath between January 2023 and as late as June 2025. 

JPMorgan Chase accepted Goliath’s business during its own crypto expansion

While initially, Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon was skeptical of crypto, he changed his opinion in the past few years. As a result, the bank became much more crypto-friendly, striking a partnership with Coinbase. According to the plaintiff, it was the partnership with Coinbase that made the bank less vigilant to Goliath’s transactions. 

The plaintiff claimed it was the crypto-friendly drive that allowed Goliath to expand its operations. According to the plaintiff, Goliath was profitable as a client, which allowed the bank to overlook its operations and transactions. 

Goliath CEO used a personal account to move funds to Coinbase

According to the claims in the filing, Christopher Alexander Delgado, the CEO of Goliath, was using Chase as his main bank, moving funds between the firm’s accounts and his personal holdings. Funds sent to Goliath from all investors were deposited into a Chase account known as JPMC 0305. 

The plaintiff noted that none of the transactions were flagged or checked, since Coinbase was already a trusted partner. This would have allowed Goliath to swap funds into crypto and possibly hide them in unmarked wallets. Coinbase has not responded to its involvement and role in enabling Goliath. 

From the JPMC 0305 account, around $123M were sent to Coinbase between January 2023 and June 2025. According to an earlier affidavit, Goliath had the intention to move funds to Coinbase to swap into crypto, then move the funds into liquidity pools to generate yield. Using DeFi for passive gains was the main proposition that Goliath sent to clients. At this point in the crypto space, DeFi was gaining popularity, and some protocols were indeed able to produce yield. 

Delgado was the only authority to control the Goliath Coinbase wallets, and would be the only authority to determine how the funds were allocated, directly from his own Coinbase account and wallet. Despite the promises of a low-risk structured investment in USDC pairs, Delgado only put $1M into liquidity pools, while posting falsely calculated returns on its own site. 

Chainalysis traced some of the funds, and the conclusion is that Goliath used new deposits to pay returns to previous investors, claiming the gains came from DeFi. In late 2025, Goliath slowed down monthly payments and made the latest payment on December 18. One user who invested $720,000 later filed a police report. Goliath stopped responding to requests in January, sparking a police investigation and the subsequent arrest of Delgado at the end of February.

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