The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced the court’s judgment finding that Joshua Christian McDonald and his company, Perfection PR Firm LLC (PPR) committed fraud, misappropriated customer funds, and operated without proper registration.
The court imposed on the defendants $360,565 in restitution and a civil monetary penalty of $935,907. The order also forbids the defendants to register in the CFTC and to trade in CFTC-regulated markets.
The US watchdog charged the defendants in February this year with fraud and misappropriation of funds in a Forex trading scheme. The defendants misappropriated around 440,000 from 12 customers.
PPR mislead customers to believe that McDonald was profitably trading Forex and promised them their accounts would grow in value 10 to 50% per month. In reality, McDonald’s trading was not successful and he actually lost money.
Moreover, the defendants transferred customer funds into cryptocurrency accounts in McDonald’s name, paying McDonald’s personal expenses and did not return the funds when the customers requested them back.
McDonald was previously indicted on four counts of wire fraud in a criminal case from January 2020.
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