Lawsuit Claims JPMorgan Accounts Were the Backbone of a $328 Million Crypto Ponzi
A California investor has filed a proposed nationwide class action lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase Bank, the largest bank in the United States by assets, accusing it of serving as the financial backbone of a $328 million cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, a fraud in which new investor deposits are used to pay earlier investors, generating no real returns, run by a Florida company called Goliath Ventures Inc., formerly known as Gen-Z Venture Firm.
Filed March 10 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, the complaint alleges JPMorgan was Goliath’s sole banking institution from January 2023 to mid-2025, and that approximately $253 million flowed through a single JPMorgan account during that period. Around $123 million was transferred onward to Goliath wallets at Coinbase.
The complaint states that only $1 to $1.5 million ever reached actual cryptocurrency investments. The rest was used to pay earlier investors or diverted by Goliath’s CEO for personal use.
Lead plaintiff Robby Alan Steele says he invested approximately $650,000 of his retirement savings into Goliath based on promises of monthly returns of 3 to 8% from supposed cryptocurrency liquidity pools, shared funds used in decentralized finance to facilitate trading, earning fees in return.
According to investigators, no such pools existed. The scheme began unravelling in late 2025 when withdrawal requests stalled. Goliath’s website went dark in January 2026 and Delgado was arrested the following month. Investigative journalist Danny de Hek had flagged Goliath’s payout structure as Ponzi-like as early as September 2025.
What the Lawsuit Claims JPMorgan Knew
The suit’s central theory is that JPMorgan’s own Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance systems, the regulatory frameworks requiring banks to verify client identities and monitor transactions for suspicious patterns — should have detected Goliath’s activity far sooner.
The complaint alleges JPMorgan knew Goliath was operating as an unlicensed investment fund and continued processing its transactions regardless.
“Chase, by virtue of its Know Your Customer actually knew that Goliath was acting as a ‘private equity’ cryptocurrency pool operator investing money for investors, without being licensed at all to sell these investments,” the complaint states. The suit seeks damages on behalf of all investors who lost money.
A Second Front: Alston & Bird
A parallel civil suit in Florida targets law firm Alston & Bird LLP, alleging it drafted agreements designed to help Goliath evade securities registration requirements.
A Broward County Circuit Court motion to appoint a receiver for Goliath’s remaining assets was approved this week. The DOJ criminal case against Delgado continues separately in the Middle District of Florida.
The JPMorgan suit tests a question courts have rarely faced at this scale: whether a bank bears civil liability for AML failures when fraud runs entirely through its accounts. Banks are not insurers against financial crime, and courts have historically been reluctant to hold them liable in the absent of evidence of actual knowledge or wilful blindness.
The complaint’s KYC argument is that JPMorgan’s own onboarding gave it constructive knowledge, meaning it had access to enough information that it should legally be treated as having known, of Goliath’s unlicensed status, is its most novel element and the one most likely to determine whether the case survives an early dismissal motion.
