SEC granted permission to serve Pires & Goncalves via email

A federal court has cleared the way for the SEC to hunt down two fugitives through their email inboxes.

Emerson Pires and Flavio Goncalves, the masterminds behind the EmpiresX securities fraud scheme, are dodging service the old-fashioned way. Brazilian authorities tried to locate them using the Hague Convention—the international mechanism for serving legal documents—and came up empty. So on March 28th, the SEC pivoted to Plan B: email.

The strategy makes sense. Pires and Goncalves ran their entire scheme online, funneling investor money through the internet and communicating constantly by email. When the SEC investigated, Pires himself admitted to using the proposed email addresses regularly between January 2018 and September 2021. Goncalves did the same, using the address while corresponding with co-defendant Joshua Nicholas during the fraud.

The court had already blessed this approach once before. In a parallel case involving Mining Capital Coin—another fraud operation connected to the same players—the SEC got permission to serve Pires at the same email addresses. That precedent gave prosecutors confidence it would work again.

Here's the kicker: on March 27, 2023, the SEC sent a draft of their motion to both men at those exact addresses. Neither email bounced back. The messages landed. The recipients just didn't respond—or pretended not to.

"It is likely Pires and Goncalves already know about this litigation," the SEC wrote, noting that the men's silence about the case made alternate service entirely appropriate.

The court agreed. On March 29th, a judge approved email service for both fugitives. Summons were issued the same day.

Now the clock starts ticking. The SEC gave them thirty days to file an answer. If nothing arrives, federal rules allow prosecutors to ask the court clerk to enter a default judgment. That's the knockout punch. Without a response from the defendants, the SEC wins by default and can pursue collection and other remedies.

The fugitives' gambit of vanishing into Brazil hasn't stopped the machinery of justice. The SEC just found a way around it.

🤖 Quick Answer

What legal permission did the SEC obtain regarding Pires and Goncalves?

Why did the SEC choose email as a service method?
Email service was deemed appropriate because Pires and Goncalves conducted their entire fraudulent scheme online, continuously communicating through email. Pires himself acknowledged using the proposed email addresses regularly between January 2018 and September 2021.

Who are the defendants in this case?
Emerson Pires and Flavio Goncalves are the alleged masterminds behind EmpiresX, a securities fraud scheme that illegally funneled

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