The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has shut down WeedGenics, a firm that raised more than $60 million dollars from investors in the cannabis business. The SEC’s emergency order calls the firm’s offering a fraud and a Ponzi scheme, and lodges charges against the two WeedGenics owners, Rolf Max Hirschmann and Patrick Earl Williams…. Read More >>
800 BitConnect Victims to Share $17M in Restitution
About 800 victims of the BitConnect cryptocurrency investment scheme will be getting some of their money back, which may serve as a ray of hope for other crypto-fraud victims left in the cold of a crypto winter full of scandal. But it will be a thin ray as the BitConnect Ponzi scheme claimed 4,154 victims… Read More >>
Guilty Plea Reached in Crypto-Based Ponzi Scheme
Maybe someday putting your hard-earned bucks into cryptocurrencies will be as safe as putting them into a bank. That day has not yet arrived. Last week, though, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler indicated that he was in favor of Congress “handing more authority to the SEC’s sister markets regulator to oversee certain… Read More >>
CFTC Charges Firm with Commodity Pool Ponzi Scheme
CFTC officials report that they have filed a civil enforcement action charging Robert Leland Johnson IV and Marisa Elena Johnson, both of Chino, Calif., with “commodity futures fraud; off-exchange, leveraged or margined retail foreign currency (forex) fraud; [and] commodity pool fraud.” In addition, the CFTC charges what it calls their “purported hedge fund,” Capitol Equity… Read More >>
What Should a Hedge Fund Do If Investors Sue?
(Editor’s note: Recently, a Canadian pension fund, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP) went public with a lawsuit alleging that hedge fund Saba Capital Management cheated PSP [click here to read], which benefits Canadian Mounties, during a $500 million redemption process. Boaz Ronald Weinstein, the founder, partner, and chief investment officer for Saba Capital,… Read More >>
Canadian Mounties’ Pension Fund Alleges Saba Capital Cheated Them
In a rare move by a pension fund, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP) is suing Saba Capital Management, alleging that the hedge fund cheated PSP, which benefits Canadian Mounties, during a $500 million redemption process. In response, Boaz Ronald Weinstein, the founder, partner, and chief investment officer for Saba Capital said in a… Read More >>
Black Diamond Ponzi Scammers Slammed with $76M Penalty
Beware of Ponzi schemers peddling forex scams. That’s one recent warning from the CFTC, which wants potential targets of foreign-exchange con artists to know that it has “witnessed a sharp rise in forex trading scams in recent years.” And the CFTC also wants to impress upon the potential forex Ponzi schemers themselves, people who might… Read More >>
CFTC Fines Morgan Stanley $280K for KYC Oversight
U.S. regulators have fined Morgan Stanley’s wealth management division $280,000 over failures in its know your customer (KYC) processes that led to a fictitious hedge fund – in reality the front for a U.K.-based Ponzi scheme – being able to open accounts despite numerous red flags, officials say. The CFTC fined Morgan Stanley Smith Barney… Read More >>
