The U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon entered a consent order against Robert L. Adams and SimTradePro of Oregon for fraud involving multiple commodity pools.
The defendants are ordered to pay $2,072,986 in restitution to defrauded victims. The order also permanently bans them from trading and registering with the CFTC and prohibits further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations, as charged.
According to the CFTC, the court found that Adams and SimTradePro fraudulently solicited and accepted more than $2.3 million from at least 100 customers to trade leveraged foreign currency exchange and leveraged gold and silver contracts in the defendants’ commodity pools.
The court alleged that the defendants misrepresented the amount of fees charged and falsely claimed to only be paid if their customers made money. In addition, it said they hid trading losses. Further. the court found that SimTradePro unlawfully acted as a commodity pool operator and commodity trading advisor.
In a related criminal action involving the same misconduct, Adams was sentenced on August 12 to 2.5 years in prison and ordered to pay restitution.
The CFTC received support from the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority, the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, and the Central Bank of Ireland.
CFTC Division of Enforcement staff responsible for this action are Harry Wedewer, Mary Lutz, Patrick Marquardt, Chris Giglio, Lenel Hickson, and Chuck Marvine.