A District Court in Taxes has entered a consent order against Ztegrity and its owner Troy Mason for running a fraudulent forex trading scheme and defrauding hundreds of investors. The defendants now face a permanent injunction, monetary sanctions and equitable relief.
The fraudulent scheme was busted by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC ) and the charges were brought in June last year. According to the website the fraudulent pool trading scheme has received over $460,000 from 411 participants.
Mason and his company were ordered to pay $643,570 in restitution to victims and another $300,000 as a civil monetary penalty.
Better than Savings
The forex trading scheme operated from approximately October 2019 to June 2021. The operators used websites and social media channels to market the fraudulent forex pool trading schemes. They called the FX trading pool “The Black Club” and “The Forex Savings Club.”
The operators touted the schemes as a version of savings accounts, offering a higher yield with low or no risk. They even guaranteed the repayment of the deposits and promised “with a 100 [percent] certainty” of generating “substantial” profits.
“In truth, the defendants knew or recklessly failed to appreciate that no forex trader can guarantee profitable trading, or the avoidance of losses required to guarantee all participants’ contributions, and knew, but failed to inform participants, they had no U.S.-based forex trading accounts,” the CFTC announcement stated.
Further, Ztegrity operated the commodity trading pool without any regulatory registration, thus violating the CEA and CFTC regulations. The court order now permanently prohibits the company and its owner from further violating the regulations and also banned them from registration and trading.
Forex trading scams are rampant across the globe. Similar to the regulators in the US, other global counterparts are also actively busting such illegal trading schemes. Earlier this year, the Thai authorities busted a $55 million forex trading scam by a popular Youtuber, who defrauded around 6,000 victims.
