CFTC Orders Spoofing Futures Traders To Pay $2.69 Million

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC ) has announced that a New York court has issued a consent order imposing a permanent injunction against United Arab Emirates (UAE) residents, Heet Khara and Nasim Salim, prohibiting them from engaging in spoofing.

The Comex futures contracts traders were originally charged in May 2015 for engaging in disruptive activity during the period of February 2015 and April 2015. Khara and Salim, both individually and in a coordinated fashion, regularly placed larger aggregate orders for gold and silver contracts on Comex opposite smaller orders and cancelled the larger orders after the smaller orders were executed. Both traders placed the larger orders with the intent to cancel them before Execution . Khara and Salim were subsequently denied direct and indirect access to all CME Group markets by CME Group’s Market Regulation Department.

The order requires Khara and Salim to pay $1.38 million and $1.31 million civil monetary penalties respectively, to settle CFTC charges of spoofing in the gold and silver futures markets. The order has also imposed permanent trading and registration bans on both parties.

CFTC Director of Enforcement Aitan Goelman commented: “The CFTC will protect the U.S. futures markets regardless of where those who engage in illegal spoofing practices are located. Spoofing undermines public confidence in our markets, and the CFTC will continue to aggressively pursue wrongdoers.”