Forex Ponzi schemes

BULLETIN: (UPDATED 4:14 P.M. EDT U.S.A. APRIL 14) The CFTC has gone to federal court in Idaho, alleging that Brad Lee Demuzio of Chubbuck was running a Forex Ponzi scheme that tanked. Unable to make payouts, Demuzio “fabricated a letter purporting to be from the CFTC and bearing the fraudulently copied signature of a CFTC officer, […]

Charles G. Martin has been sentenced to 17 years in federal prison — and fellow Forex Ponzi schemer John E. Walsh has been sentenced to more than 12 years — in a case in which investors’ money went to pay for strippers, fine meals, fine hotels, a piano, high-end electronics, artwork, jewelry, flashy cars and […]

UPDATE: Jeffery (also cited as “Jeffrey”) L. Groendyke, the Michigan man ordered by a federal judge earlier this month to pay nearly $1.4 million in restitution and penalties in a Forex Ponzi case brought civilly by the CFTC, now has pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of wire fraud, federal prosecutors in the Western District […]

Jeffery L. Groendyke, the Michigan man accused by the CFTC in May of targeting people of faith and others in a Forex Ponzi scheme, has been ordered to pay $963,141 in restitution and a $420,000 civil penalty. U.S. District Judge Robert J. Jonker issued the order against Groendyke by consent, finding that he fraudulently solicited […]

David A. Smith, the Ponzi schemer who swindled investors in the Caribbean and Florida in a caper that gathered more than $200 million, has been sentenced to 30 years in a U.S. prison. Smith, a Jamaican citizen who was brought to Florida last year to face the U.S. charges, first must serve a sentence of […]

BULLETIN: A federal judge in Texas has ordered the former pastor of an Idaho church and his firm to pay more than $2 million in restitution and penalties in a Forex Ponzi scheme that affected 64 customers, including church members allegedly targeted in the preacher’s scam. The order, which was entered by consent, applies to […]

Marlyn D. “Milt” Hinders, a Colorado fugitive charged six years ago in the $80 million Genesis Fund Forex Ponzi scheme, has been arrested in Houston, 9News.com (KUSA) is reporting. Hinders is 72. He was indicted in May 2005. A federal grand jury that had been impaneled in the Central District of California in 2003 accused […]

BULLETIN: The CFTC has gone to federal court in the Southern District of Florida, alleging that a former Miami man who conducted prayer services in his home ripped off church members, friends, neighbors and others in a Forex Ponzi scheme. Some investors bought into the scheme with cash payments that totaled in the hundreds of […]

A Minnesota man has become the second person with ties to convicted Ponzi schemer Trevor Cook’s Forex scam to be charged criminally. Christopher Pettengill, 54, of Plymouth, “knowingly concealed information from investors concerning the foreign currency program sold by Pettengill, Cook, and others,” federal prosecutors said. He has been charged with securities fraud, money-laundering and […]

A North Carolina man sued by the CFTC last year in an alleged $3 million Forex and commodities Ponzi scheme now has been arrested by federal agents on criminal charges. The allegations in the case destroy a myth advanced by financial hucksters and shills that a company that issues 1099 tax forms could not possibly […]

BULLETIN: Arthur Allen Ferdig, a California man who owned a collapsed Forex Ponzi scheme known as Tradex and claimed to have conversed with angels and the “Christ Energy,” has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for tax evasion. Ferdig, 71, admitted he practiced “sophisticated concealment” and stashed Tradex cash in offshore accounts and […]