As we continue our efforts to alert potential victims of the Forex Ponzi and other frauds today CFTC charged a Texas A&M University professor and an accountant with falsifying statements to investors promising them returns of tens of percents a year and claiming they never had a loosing month.
This is another case where something sounds too good to be truth but this time a University professor is involved which might explain why people believed something like that…
Wall Street Journal has more:
https://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090526-709674.html
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a civil lawsuit against two people, including a Texas A&M University professor, and two companies in an alleged multimillion-dollar foreign-Exchange fraud scheme starting in 2006.
U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake froze the defendants' assets and allowed the commodities trading regulator to seize records.
Charged was Robert D. Watson, an executive professor in the Finance Department, Houston lawyer and accountant Daniel J. Petroski and two companies, PrivateFX Global One Ltd. and 36 Holdings Ltd. The CFTC accused the two men of urging potential investors to purchase shares in PrivateFX Global One by touting their supposed quarterly trading returns of 6% to 10% from January 2000 through June 30, 2006.
About 60 investors purchased $19.5 million in Global One shares since it began operations in 2006, according to the CFTC. The defendants reported returns of 1.5% to 3% a month and claimed to never have had a losing month, the agency noted.
A university spokesman couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
According to the complaint, the defendants provided the CFTC with falsified account statements showing alleged profitable trades at an international brokerage firm from the start of this year through April totaling $7.5 million in the trading account of 36 Holdings, of which $2.1 million was allocated as Global One profit. The defendants also allegedly provided the CFTC with false Swiss bank statements for 36 Holdings.
A status conference is set for Friday.
The CFTC is seeking restitution and disgorgement of illegal proceeds, civil monetary penalties and injunctions against further violations and trading.
-By Tess Stynes, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2473; tess.stynes@dowjones.com
