The American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Boston division, has announced that a Massachusetts resident was charged on July 14th with engaging in a scheme to defraud people seeking to invest in the Forex market from 2007 to 2009. The indictment alleges that Marcellus Lopes Lee defrauded at least 65 individuals from across Canada and the U.S of more than $3.4 million through this scheme.
According to the indictment, Lee was the owner and operator of Taurus Global Markets Ltd. (TGM), a company that supposedly executed transactions in the Forex market on behalf of investors. The indictment alleges that Lee convinced prospective investors to wire funds to TGM’s Belize bank account for the purpose of trading in the risky Forex market, when in fact, Lee never intended to use the funds for that purpose, but instead converted investors’ funds for his own personal use, buying a house and several cars, among other things.
It is also alleged that Lee presented TGM as having staff, management and a computer network “distributed all across the world,” when in fact TGM had no employees and Lee operated it primarily from his residence in Massachusetts. According to the indictment, Lee sent documents to his victims reflecting that their money was invested in the Forex market, and that all or most of the investors’ funds were lost in trading, when in fact, no actual transactions had occurred on behalf of investors, and Lee instead transferred the funds to his own accounts.
Lee was charged with sixteen counts of wire fraud and six counts of monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity. The charging statute provides a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000 on the charge of wire fraud, and on the charge of illegal monetary transactions, a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000.
This scam is yet another example of the dire need for investors to follow Forex Magnates for warnings about the dangers in the Forex markets, such as clone websites and fake companies.
