On Wednesday, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that they had obtained permanent injunctions against a Florida man and foreign defendants for getting involved in fraudulent binary options schemes. These orders will ensure that these individuals cannot conduct any further business operations involving futures contracts or cryptocurrency trading platforms within America’s borders as well as abroad.
Daniel Fingerhut, a resident of Miami, Itay Barak, Tal Valariola, and DPL are required to pay $7 million in disgorgement for violations.
The three are accused by the CFTC’s Enforcement Division of fraudulently advertising money management strategies they did not carry out according to their agreements or properly educate customers before charging them fees-related activities such as providing investment advice without being appropriately certified.
Further, the trio was also banned from undertaking any trading activities and filling for registrations.
The defendants are accused of fraudulently soliciting ‘tens of millions’ in customers and prospects to open binary options or crypto trading accounts, all of which were operated using unregistered brokers.
In its statement, the CFTC notes, “The orders find that Fingerhut, Barak, and Valariola created, disseminated, and/or facilitated the use of fraudulent solicitations in emails, websites, and video sales letters promising free access to purportedly successful automated trading systems that traded on behalf of clients in binary options involving commodity interests and digital assets. These solicitations misrepresented hypothetical and fictitious trading results as real results and used fabricated customer testimonials.”
The dispute is becoming increasingly intriguing as more lawsuits arise from it. We can tell from the two additional entity defendants and one relief defendant the authorities are litigating.
The CFTC is indebted to the Israel Securities Authority and Financial Supervision Commission of Bulgaria for their assistance in this investigation.
Not the Only Fraud Case
A recent investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has led to charges being brought against Abner Alejandro Tinoco and his company, Kikit & Mess Investments LLC for misappropriating investors’ funds.
The Texas man has solicited and misappropriated over $3.9 million in his quest for power, money, status – all at the expense of others’ well-being; but there is something that he lacks: wit!
The famous quote by Voltaire “I may not be able to give you what you want but I can always show up with better manners” comes into play here because this fellow doesn’t seem too concerned about making friends or connections outside himself which leaves him isolated from society as a whole (a bit lonely).
Ever since the agency got wind of this scheme, they have been working hard to put an end it, since September 2020.
With the funds from at least 61 clients, he was able to manage their customized trading portfolios in foreign exchange and cryptocurrency investments.
