BULLETIN: Defendant In January CFTC Sweep Ordered To Pay $280,000 Penalty; ‘ForInvest’ Also Ordered To Remove Forex Solicitation Pages From Internet; Firm Used Same Payment Processor As Imperia Invest IBC, Ponzi Forum Darling And Defendant In SEC Action

BULLETIN: A Delaware company accused by the CFTC in January of illegally hawking Forex offers has been hit with a $280,000 penalty and ordered to remove its Forex solicitation pages from the Internet.

U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel of the Northern District of Illinois entered the order against ForInvest Group of Delaware. ForInvest also is known as ForInvests Group LLC.

ForInvest also was banned permanently “from engaging in any commodity-related activity, including trading, and from registering or seeking exemption from registration with the CFTC,” the CFTC said.

The company was one of 14 Forex outfits sued by the CFTC in what was described as a nationwide sweep of unregistered firms illegally targeting U.S. residents.

ForInvest advertised that it accepted payments via Perfect Money, a murky firm purportedly based in Panama that allegedly was used by a company that defrauded thousands of deaf investors in a scheme known as Imperia Invest IBC. The SEC said in October 2010 that Imperia Invest had stolen millions of dollars from investors.

In the same CFTC sweep, the agency also sued InstaTrade Corp., doing business as InstaForex. InstaForex is an advertiser on the TalkGold Ponzi scheme and criminals forum, and research showed that InstaForex — like Imperia Invest and ForInvest — also used Perfect Money.

Imperia Invest and InstaForex also were promoted on TalkGold and other Ponzi forums, according to records.

Zagel ordered “[a]ny person or entity providing web-hosting or domain name registration services” for ForInvest  to preserve documents and “[a]ny person or entity providing web-hosting or domain name registration services to “remove or cause to be removed from the Internet all webpages within their control . . .”

See earlier story.

Read the ForInvest court order.