The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today announced that on September 30th, 2014, Judge William Dimitrouleas of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida issued under seal an emergency order freezing and preserving assets under the control of Jean Chauvel,Renaud Pierre-Charles, and Robert Tripode and their company Forex Monthly Income Fund, LLC (FMIF) (collectively, defendants), a commodity pool operator based in the Miami, Florida area. The Order also prohibits the defendants from destroying books and records and allows the CFTC immediate access to those records. The court scheduled a hearing for October 10, 2014, on the CFTC’s motion for a preliminary injunction.
Defendants allegedly misappropriated more than $1 million of customer funds
The emergency Order is part of a CFTC civil enforcement action also filed under seal on September 30th, 2014. The CFTC complaint alleges that from as early as January 2011, the defendants fraudulently solicited more than $1.4 million from members of the public to trade Forex in a commodity pool by, among other things, guaranteeing pool participants a monthly return on their investment based on profits purportedly earned from Forex trading. Some of the defendants’ victims were unsophisticated investors, including senior citizens, who sought higher monthly income on their retirement savings, according to the complaint. The complaint also alleges that the defendants never traded or generated any income from trading Forex, but rather misappropriated more than $1 million of the pool participants’ funds.
In its continuing litigation, the CFTC seeks full restitution to defrauded pool participants, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, the payment of appropriate civil monetary penalties, permanent registration and trading bans, and a permanent injunction from future violations of federal commodities laws, as charged.
CFTC Division of Enforcement staff members responsible for this case are Kim Bruno, Michael Loconte, Daniel Jordan, and Rick Glaser.
Source: CFTC