Archive

September 17, 2015

The CFTC filed a complaint against Mintco LLC of Delray Beach, Florida, and its principals Stuart Rubin and Richard Q. Zimmerman, charging the defendants with unlawfully targeting low net-worth retail customers with telemarketing and off-exchange transactions for the purchase and sale of gold and other precious metals.  CFTC

September 16, 2015

The operators of a fraudulent debt collection scheme will be banned from the debt collection business under a settlement with the FTC, resolving charges that they illegally processed more than $5.2 million in payments from consumers for payday loan debts they did not owe. The settlement resolves a complaint the FTC filed against Kirit Patel, Broadway Global Master Inc., and In-Arabia Solutions Inc. In 2012, alleging that callers working with the defendants harassed consumers into paying on bogus debts, often pretending to be agents of law enforcement or fake government agencies such as the “Federal Crime Unit of the Department of Justice.” FTC

August 28, 2015

Ron Earl McCullough and David Christopher Mayhew, both from Raleigh, North Carolina, have been ordered to pay $3.7 million for their roles in a Ponzi scheme involving at least 11 investors.  CFTC

August 10, 2015

A New Hampshire investment advisor was sentenced to up to 7 years in prison for fraud. Richard M. Higgins plead guilty to one felony count of engaging in a course of conduct involving a scheme to defraud in connection with the purchase and sale of securities, and one felony count of a course of business that operated as fraud in connection with acting as an investment advisor. Beginning in late 2006 and continuing through August 2007, Higgins solicited investors for a pooled investment in the form of a limited partnership, making a number of false and misleading statements. Higgins then further defrauded the investors by providing them quarterly statements which regularly overstated the performance of their investments. NH

August 7, 2015

The FTC charged a data broker operation, including Sequoia One LLC and Gen X Marketing Group LLC, with illegally selling payday loan applicants’ financial information to a scam operation that took millions of dollars from consumers by debiting their bank accounts and charging their credit cards without their consent. According to the FTC’s complaint, the data broker enterprise bought loan applications from the operators of payday loan websites, and got others directly from consumers via their own payday loan websites. Instead of passing on those applications to legitimate payday lenders, the defendants sold the information to companies that raided the consumers’ accounts for at least $7.1 million. FTC

July 31, 2015

Keith F. Simmons and his company, Black Diamond Capital Solutions, LLC, and Deanna Salazar and her companies, Life Plus Group, LLC and Black Diamond Holdings, LLC, have been hit with a $76 million penalty for running a foreign currency exchange (forex) Ponzi scheme.  CFTC

June 24, 2015

The CFTC has charged Nick A. Wurl and his company Ludiera Capital LLC, both of Chicago, Illinois, with fraud, misappropriation, and the issuance of false statements in connection with a $9 million investment pool scheme.  CFTC

June 19, 2015

The Southern District of New York has ordered Joseph F. Welsh III of Northport, New York, to pay $500,000 to resolve CFTC charges that he attempted to manipulate settlement prices of NYMEX palladium and platinum futures contracts.  CFTC

June 16, 2015

A judge for the Western District of Missouri has ordered Gregory Christopher Evans to pay over $1.2 million in penalties for fraud and unauthorized swaps trading.  CFTC

May 14, 2015

The CFTC ordered Double Eagle Enterprises, LLC, Double Eagle Metals, and its owner Eric Arlt, all of Charlevoix, Michigan, to pay $700,000 for illegally offering off-exchange financed transactions in precious metals with retail customers, and failure to register as a Futures Commission Merchant with the CFTC.  CFTC