Bankers & Today

Civil Action No.98-7062-CIV- DIMITROULEAS
A similar foreign currency trading scheme, Unique Financial Concepts, Inc., was also sued by the SEC.

09/99 - Anthony Baldwin and Global Currency Management, Inc. were alleged to have fraudulently raised over $1 million from investors who believed his promotional material which stated he had a notable and recognized record of consistently profitable returns, averaging almost 5% monthly, in his foreign currency trading.

Reassured by false monthly account statements which depicted the investment as safe and profitable, victims were unaware that he had already lost virtually all of their money in trading despite, or perhaps because of, his former experienc with International Capital Management. ( see above )
He agreed to the SEC injunction but was not required to make restitution due to his demonstrated inability to pay.
A few current ops are using the firm names Salmon Chase International, Inc., Gibson Reed and First Forex Holding Corporation.
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10/02 - EMF HOLDINGS, INC., a "real estate" firm in Cebu and Manila in the Philippines and Hong Kong ( with plans to expand to Singapore and Japan ) specializes in currency trading ( yen against the dollar ), though they also maintain different savings and checking accounts in dollars and pesos in various international banks.
Though the company is small, EDGAR FIGER, the owner, says he has a great deal of experience in trading and while he seems to own 80% of the company, for some reason, his name does not appear in any of the registration documents, especially with the SEC there.
Investors seem to become creditors who loan the company money with a promise of 20% returns every 30 days. The traders must accumulate enough borrowed funds to reach a contract size in either yen or dollars in order to make quota before they get on the payroll.
EMF Holdings Inc.
Fedman Bldg, Salcedo St. Makati City
802-A Keppel Tower Cebu Business Park, Cebu City, Philippines
EMF Investment Ltd
Unit 1808 One International Finance Center, HK

RESERVED NAMES

EMF HOLDINGS, INC., RRN20020726083651362
EMF HOLDINGS, INC., RRN20020726085816947
EMF MULTI-SYSTEM MANAGEMENT AND HOLDINGS CORPORATION, RRN02169101937
Siphon Tap Turned Of
CA - 11/15/03 - UnionTrib.com - A federal jury yesterday convicted two San Diego men on charges of mail and wire fraud related to an apparent Ponzi scheme the pair operated out of La Jolla offices.
William F. McCray and Paul Yates were indicted in August 2000 on charges that they lured the public to invest $30 million in International Forex and Earthwise International, two firms that purportedly traded foreign currency.
Prosecutors said the two solicited clients with fraudulent claims of high annual returns on these currency trading accounts and falsely told investors their funds were insured and held in trust with a bank.
In addition, prosecutors said they told victims who invested that their accounts were earning substantial positive returns, when in fact they were being paid with new investor money.
Prosecutors said McCray also siphoned off $5.8 million in investor money, putting it into a Bermuda bank account and using it to purchase a condominium and a luxury sports car.
Yates was convicted on 12 counts of mail fraud and six counts of wire fraud. He faces up to 90 years in prison and fines of $4.5 million, prosecutors said.
McCray was convicted on five counts of money laundering, two counts of filing a false tax return and one count of conspiracy to evade taxes for concealing more than $1 million in income from the Internal Revenue Service over three years.
He also was found guilty of four counts of perjury for his testimony in bankruptcy proceedings for International Forex, in which he denied the company was related to Earthwise International.
McCray faces a maximum sentence of 101 years in prison and fines of $10.5 billion, prosecutors said. Sentencing for the pair is scheduled for February.
The jury also found that $5.8 million McCray wired to the Bermuda bank and the car were assets related to the money laundering charges. Prosecutors said this finding could lead to their forfeiture to the U.S. government.
A third man charged in the scheme, Tony D. Ortega, pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges of conspiracy to evade taxes. He is scheduled to be sentenced next month.
C1931660 3/20/1995 forfeited INTERNATIONAL FOREX LTD.
www.ss.ca.gov/corpdata/ShowAllList?QueryCorpNumber=C1931660 WILLIAM MCCRAY
C2012765 6/5/1997 active INTERNATIONAL FOREX OF CALIFORNIA, INC.
www.ss.ca.gov/corpdata/ShowAllList?QueryCorpNumber=C2012765 WILLIAM MCCRAY
Dubai Currency Trading Scam Bust

02/07 - (Gulf News) Dubai: The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) said on Thursday it has broken a global currency trading scam.
The scam invited investors in Australia and Singapore to put their money in fictitious entities which claimed to be based in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).
One alleged operative, who liaised with potential investors using a UAE phone number, has been arrested in Dubai. At least six fraud victims contacted the DIFC regulator, leading to a four-week investigation.
"At this stage we cannot be certain about the size of the scam or investor losses, but we know that approximately $600,000 has passed through a bank account set up by these fraudsters in Malaysia," DFSA chief executive David Knott said.
The probe was conducted by DFSA and with the Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority and involved market regulators from Malaysia, Britain, the US and Singapore.
The racket operated three fictitious entities called the Dubai Options Exchange, the UAE Commodities Futures Board and Cambridge Capital Trading. All claimed to offer services within the DIFC.
The fraudsters used a US-based internet service provider. Australian and Singaporean investors were cold called by representatives of Cambridge Capital Trading to take options on currency movements.
The investors were then directed to the false websites and told to transfer funds into the bank account in Malaysia.
Florida is fertile for foreign currency fraud
02/06 - When investigators from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission looked into Lazaro Jose Rodriguez's bank accounts, they said they found that in a single month he had withdrawn customer trading funds to spend $173,251 on two Chevrolet Corvettes.
In a separate case, the CFTC in December sued a Coral Springs man and the companies he ran, alleging they had fraudulently taken $14 million from at least 140 people by falsely claiming they made large profits trading foreign currency futures.
Commodities fraud, a growing problem in South Florida and across the nation, will be a topic of debate when industry leaders meet at the Futures Industry Association's annual conference next month in Boca Raton.
Though there are no reliable statistics on commodities fraud by geographic region, and many cases include suspects from different areas, the industry consensus is that South Florida outpaces the rest of the nation.
"The combination of numerous palm trees, roguish telemarketers, phone banks, rich retirees, telemarketing defense lawyers, and [South Florida's] close proximity to foreign jurisdictions makes it a magnet for those that want to earn their living with their tongue and a telephone," said Gregory Mocek, enforcement director for the CFTC, which polices the sale of commodity futures and options. "Pour a little Panama Jack suntan oil on the situation and you have a perfect environment where investors get burned."
In a suit filed earlier this month, the CFTC alleged that Miami-based Rodriguez had burned about 400 investors for a total of $1.5 million after promising them 300 percent trading profits. Rodriguez could not be reached for comment.
Among the trends the CFTC is finding in South Florida: Trading operations are overcharging customers by requiring them to pay both a commission and a so-called spread, essentially another commission. Some boiler rooms have started to seek investors for gold, which is attractive because it has risen 26 percent in the past year.
With the growth of the Internet, regulators also are seeing more online trading operations offering illegal foreign exchange contracts and then misusing the investments they receive, Mocek said.
Some industry experts say South Florida's history as a hotbed for telemarketing boiler rooms makes it easy for fraudsters to move quickly into commodities such as currencies when the market gets hot.
"South Florida was the commodities options fraud capital of the world in the early to mid-1980s," said Robert Wayne Pearce, a Boca Raton lawyer specializing in commodities and stock law. In the 1990s, federal and state officials cracked down on boiler rooms, and the commodities markets quieted as investors shifted money into the stock market.
But with the prices of commodities such as gold, oil, copper and platinum rising sharply in the past year, investors have become more interested in the esoteric world of futures and options trading. "That gives opportunities to the hucksters out there," Pearce said.
One good indicator, though unscientific, is that advertisements for training in commodities trading are starting to appear more frequently in newspapers and other media outlets, he said.
Commodities are physical goods, such as metals, foods, grains and currencies. An investor usually buys them through a futures contract, an agreement to buy or sell a set amount of a commodity at a predetermined time.
A futures contract is an obligation to the buyer and seller. An options contract is different in that it is an obligation only to the seller.
Nationwide, the CFTC has gathered about $300 million in restitution and penalties in 85 cases in the past five years, Mocek said. About 24,000 people were victims in those cases.
But John Damgard, president of the Futures Industry Association, thinks the penalties -- typically suspensions, fines or banishment from the industry -- aren't harsh enough.
The biggest problem is not the firms that trade on exchanges, but criminals running "storefronts" that pretend to be legitimate, Damgard said. In South Florida, the CFTC needs to work more closely with law enforcement officials and the state attorney's office to ensure that offenders go to jail, he said. The CFTC doesn't have that authority.
"It's a cruel hoax to make the CFTC the lead agency in putting these guys in the slammer," Damgard said. He would like to see a state prosecutor in Florida "make an example" of fraudsters the way New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer challenged Wall Street firms in court.
Mocek said the CFTC opened an Office of Cooperative Enforcement more than three years ago and has been collaborating with the FBI, state attorney general offices and local prosecutors.
But Mocek knows that as long as the weather is agreeable, commodities fraudsters will make South Florida home.
"There are a number of people," he said, "who would rather do it from a warm spot rather than sit on an icecap."