Former New York City Police Department officer Jason Rodriguez has been sentenced to 36 months in prison for his role in a fraudulent investment scheme involving Technical Trading Team LLC, a foreign exchange trading fund. The sentencing took place in federal court in Brooklyn before United States District Judge Ramon E. Reyes, Jr.
Rodriguez and his co-conspirator, Edwin Carrion, persuaded more than 20 individuals to invest over $4 million with their company by making several false claims about the safety and profitability of the investments. As part of the sentence, Rodriguez must also pay a forfeiture money judgment of $748,394.00 and restitution totaling $2,305,256.00. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in November 2024.
The announcement was made by Joseph Nocella, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, along with Christopher G. Raia from the FBI’s New York Field Office.
“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 information presented in court filings and statements from Rodriguez himself, he and Carrion started Technical Trading Team in spring 2020. Rodriguez acted as Chief Operating Officer and controlled most of nearly $5 million collected from investors. They told investors they could expect annual returns between 18% and 24% and that various protections were in place to safeguard their funds.
However, investigators found that key safeguards described by Rodriguez did not exist or were ignored. For example, although they claimed there was a “loss reserve account” set aside for market losses that could be used to repay investors if needed, no such account existed. They also said only up to 1% of investor funds would ever be at risk at any one time—a policy that was disregarded—along with assurances that no trading positions would remain open overnight.
On one occasion, Rodriguez held an open trade from February 2021 until April 2022 which led to losses exceeding $150,000—about 12.61% of all assets managed by Technical Trading Team at the time.
When it became clear that promised returns could not be met through legitimate trading profits alone, Rodriguez began using new investor money to pay existing clients their expected returns—a hallmark tactic known as a Ponzi scheme.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Benjamin Weintraub from the Business and Securities Fraud Section with support from Paralegal Specialist Liam McNett.
Jason Rodriguez is age 38 and resides in Bellerose, New York (E.D.N.Y Docket No. 24-CR-79).
