A man operating out of a California and Tennessee-based company has been accused of wire fraud, fraud and misappropriation.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a civil enforcement action in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri against Joshua Christian McDonald and his company, Perfection PR Firm (PPR). The filing included allegations of fraud and misappropriation.
The regulator alleged McDonald and PPR used solicited funds totalling at least $440,000 from at least 12 investors to an off-exchange foreign currency trading scheme.
The CFTC said the defendants pooled investors’ funds in bank and trading accounts in their own names and that by soliciting funds for and operating the pooled investment vehicle, PPR acted as an unregistered commodity pool operator and McDonald acted as an unregistered associated person of PPR.
Moreover, the CFTC accused McDonald of lying to investors, telling them their accounts’ value would grow between 10% and 50% per month, despite McDonald actually losing money.
The regulator also accused McDonald of misappropriating investors’ funds and transferring them into digital asset accounts in McDonald’s name or to pay for his personal expenses. According to the complaint, investors have lost most or all of their invested funds as a result of the defendants’ fraud and misappropriation.
The CFTC charges about fraud and misappropriation comes after the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri indicted McDonald on four counts of wire fraud in January 2020.
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