CFTC

The TalkGold Ponzi scheme and criminals’ forum has deleted a “sticky” thread reportedly paid for by InstaForex, a dubious company named a defendant in a registration sweep conducted by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission last month. The PP Blog reported two days ago that InstaForex was using TalkGold to promote a scheme by which […]

SPECIAL REPORT: UPDATED 2:27 P.M. ET (U.S.A., FEB. 9) Federal court and web records show that at least three of the 14 purported Forex dealers named defendants in a major sweep of unregistered firms last month by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission advertised that they accepted funds from Perfect Money. Perfect Money is a murky […]

Let’s start with the chaos in Egypt this week. Protesters have streamed into the streets to demand that President Hosni Mubarak step down after three decades of autocratic rule. The government initially reacted by shutting down the Internet. As tensions rose, protesters, activists and journalists covering the events were beaten. Some of the protesters were […]

UPDATED 2:37 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) If you’re a modern-day commodities fraudster and Ponzi schemer, be prepared to have massive criminal and civil exposure. The recent cases against Charles E. “Chuck” Hays of Minnesota tell a tale of significant prison time, a huge criminal restitution order and civil fines that effectively exposed him to treble damages […]

UPDATED 12:21 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) In a case that outlines allegations of intimidation reminiscent of efforts undertaken by some members of AdSurfDaily to frighten investors, a Utah federal judge has frozen the assets of a Texas man and entered an order prohibiting the destruction of books and records. Robert J. Andres and an unincorporated firm […]

Ronald E. Satterfield, the South Carolina pastor accused in a November lawsuit filed by the CFTC of operating a Forex Ponzi scheme from church property and elsewhere, now has been arrested on criminal charges of bank fraud. The Charleston Police Department confirmed Satterfield’s arrest yesterday to the PP Blog. The arrest occurred Thursday, according to […]

BULLETIN: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has gone to federal courts in New York, Chicago, the District of Columbia and Kansas City and simultaneously filed 14 lawsuits against Forex companies to enforce registration requirements and provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act. One of the lawsuits — one filed in the District of Columbia against a Nevada company […]

The assets of an Arizona man who allegedly mixed a Forex Ponzi scheme with a cash-gifting scheme and claimed his software system let clients “profit every time” from trades have been frozen by a federal judge after the CFTC filed an emergency court action. Anthony Eugene Linton of Tucson told investors that entrusting their money […]

A Florida resident charged with defrauding investors in Hawaii and the U.S. mainland has been sentenced to 90 months in federal prison, ordered to begin serving his sentence immediately and make restitution — and advised he faces deportation to Madagascar upon his release from a U.S. prison. The case against Patrick H. Rakotonanahary, 34, of […]

A New York man sued by the CFTC last month for registration violations has been arrested on criminal charges of threatening to kill 47 current or former market regulators, federal prosecutors said. Vincent P. McCrudden, 49, who recently had been living in Singapore, was arrested yesterday by the FBI at Newark Liberty International Airport after […]

Members of the purported MPB Today “grocery” program now are touting company President Gary Calhoun as 2003’s “Businessman of the Year” in promotional news releases and articles online. The company itself is doing the same thing on its website, explaining that Calhoun “was chosen as ‘Outstanding Young Men (sic) in America 1982’ . . . […]