{"id":84484,"date":"2023-04-17T01:02:34","date_gmt":"2023-04-17T05:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/?p=84484"},"modified":"2023-04-17T00:59:16","modified_gmt":"2023-04-17T04:59:16","slug":"florida-man-and-his-two-entities-ordered-to-pay-16-million-for-fraud-misappropriation-and-false-statements-to-the-cftc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/04\/2023\/florida-man-and-his-two-entities-ordered-to-pay-16-million-for-fraud-misappropriation-and-false-statements-to-the-cftc.html","title":{"rendered":"Florida Man and His Two Entities Ordered to Pay $16 Million for Fraud, Misappropriation, and False Statements to the CFTC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>(HedgeCo.Net) The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has announced the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida entered a consent order against <strong>Damian Castilla <\/strong>and an order for final judgment against <strong>DCAST Capital Investments LLC<\/strong> and <strong>Five Traders LLC <\/strong>on April 6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The orders resolve the CFTC\u2019s <strong>May 17, 2022<\/strong> lawsuit and find the defendants liable for defrauding over 50 pool participants by fraudulently soliciting investments and misappropriating pool participants\u2019 funds. The orders also resolve CFTC charges that the defendants made false statements to the CFTC during its investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The orders require the defendants to pay <strong>$2,687,440<\/strong> in restitution to those defrauded as well as <strong>$3,350,000<\/strong> in disgorgement. The orders also require Castilla to pay a <strong>$3 million<\/strong> civil monetary penalty and DCAST Capital and Five Traders, collectively, to pay a <strong>$10,050,000<\/strong> civil monetary penalty. Additionally, the orders enjoin the defendants from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations, as charged, and impose permanent trading and registration bans against defendants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Case Background<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The orders find that, from January 2014 to May 2022, the defendants made various material misrepresentations to solicit pool participants, including that they earned significant profits trading futures for pool participants. The defendants\u2019 limited futures trading was unprofitable, and instead of trading as promised, they misappropriated the vast majority of pool participant funds. The defendants used pool participant funds for car payments, home remodeling, lawn services, clothing, dining, and other personal expenses. The defendants continued their fraud by issuing false account statements that showed profitable trading in nonexistent trading accounts and by using a portion of the funds obtained from pool participants to pay fake profits to earlier pool participants. The orders also find the defendants failed to register with the CFTC, as required. Finally, the orders find the defendants made false statements in responding to a subpoena the CFTC\u2019s Division of Enforcement issued during the investigation into their conduct. For example, in response to a subpoena, the defendants provided false information about their customers\u2014failing to disclose over 40 pool participants that collectively provided almost $2 million.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The CFTC cautions victims that restitution orders may not result in the recovery of money lost because the wrongdoers may not have sufficient funds or assets. The CFTC will continue to fight vigorously for the protection of customers and to ensure the wrongdoers are held accountable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(HedgeCo.Net) The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has announced the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida entered a consent order against Damian Castilla and an order for final judgment against DCAST Capital Investments LLC and Five Traders LLC [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048,16047],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news","category-insider-trading-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84485,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84484\/revisions\/84485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}