This week alone the Commodities Futures Trading Commission issued 5 separate press releases regarding various frauds and ponzi schemes.   As we have noted many times before investors should make sure they conduct adequate due diligence into their managers.  It also goes without saying, but managers should not engage in fraudulent [...]

SEC Charges Missing Trader for Defrauding Investors at Sarasota-Based Hedge Funds FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2009-10 Washington, D.C., Jan. 21, 2009 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Arthur Nadel of Sarasota, Fla., with fraud in connection with six hedge funds for which he acted as the principal investment advisor. [...]

Broken Record I’ve said it all before.  The following press release can be found here.  Please see the following articles on hedge fund and investment advisor fraud. Hedge Funds, Congress and Madoff Investment Advisor Fraud CPO Fraud – Lessons in Due Diligence Affinity Fraud Alert

A commodity pool operator is issued an injunction for fraudulent behavior.  In classic fashion, this fraudster touted performance results which were grossly inaccurate.  The scheme ended earlier this year and investors lost almost $6 million dollars.  As we’ve noted before, hedge fund investors (including those investors in commodity and futures [...]

In addition to fraud in the hedge fund space, investors need to be aware of fraud with strictly investment advisory firms.  This notice and the complaint below provide more information on a specific investment advisory firm fraud.

The NFA suspended the membership of SNC Investments, a firm which ran commodity hedge funds and commodity managed accounts.  The original post can be found here. For Immediate Release For more information contact: Larry Dyekman (312) 781-1372, ldyekman@nfa.futures.org Karen Wuertz (312) 781-1335, kwuertz@nfa.futures.org NFA takes emergency enforcement action against SNC [...]

Investment advisors who recommend hedge fund investments should be very careful to disclose all material agreements between the advisor and the hedge fund and hedge fund manager.  In the case below an investment advisor recommend hedge fund investments to its clients without disclosing to such clients that the advisor was [...]

Summary: Last Wednesday the SEC filed a complaint against a forex hedge fund manager who was supposedly using a “trading robot” to generate huge returns. It turns out the forex hedge fund manager and the trading robot did not generate the outsized returns, but instead lost investor money. There are [...]

Summary: The CFTC ordered a hedge fund manager who operated four commodity pools to pay more than $279 mm in restitution to prior hedge fund investors as well a $20 mm civil penalty for his fraud. The manager concealed huge losses from investors by issuing false account statements which reflected [...]

Washington, DC— The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has formed a special task force charged with investigating and litigating fraud in the off-exchange retail foreign currency (forex) market. The creation of the task force within the Division of Enforcement comes in the wake of Congress’ passage in June 2008 of [...]