A Middle District Court of Florida judge has ordered CFTC representatives to attend the court proceedings against the owners of Oasis Global FX, Limited and Oasis Global FX in a case involving the operation of a fraudulent FX scheme.
The court today rejected a motion filed by the US regulator, seeking permission to allow its staff’s attendance via telephone or video conferencing, and said they must appear in person at next week’s hearing.
“Multiple motions will be discussed at the hearing, and the Court has questions for the CFTC that will be challenging to address via telephone. While the Court favors conservation of government resources, the CFTC's physical appearance at the hearing is necessary,” the order further explains.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) charges Michael DaCorta, Joseph Anile, Raymond Montie, Francisco Duran, and John Haas with illegally setting up and running a retail foreign currency exchange trading firm from 2011 through 2019.
A Ponzi-style scheme paid $28 million
The defendants cold-called victims and convinced them to invest their monies with the company in Forex markets. The fraudsters even went as far as to draft performance reports which falsely claimed their pools had achieved gross annual returns for investors of about 21 percent in 2017, and 22 percent in 2018.
For new participants, they were assured of receiving a minimum 12 percent guaranteed annual returns, while they were actually duped into a Ponzi scheme. To support the fraud, Oasis Global FX workers sent bogus account statements to clients, falsely showing positive returns on their investments, while they actually lost $21 million and misappropriated $47 million.
“As further alleged, of the approximately $75 million the defendants received from pool participants between mid-April 2014 and the present, the defendants deposited only $21 million into Oasis Pools’ Forex Trading accounts and lost all of those funds trading,” the CFTC further explains.
Additionally, in order to shore up the fraud, they used a Ponzi-style scheme in which they paid over $28 million to early investors that they claimed represented profits but were, in fact, other investors’ funds.
