Nobody should have any doubt how seriously the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is taking its task of stamping out FX-related fraud. This week it has announced that it has charged Barki LLC of Mint Hill, North Carolina, and its founder Bruce Kramer with “fraudulently soliciting at least $40 million to trade leveraged foreign currency contracts, misappropriating at least $30 million of customer funds to pay purported profits, return principal to customers, and for personal expenses. The defendants concealed their fraud and trading losses through false account statements for over five years.”
Perhaps the most startling thing in this latest case is that Kramer is dead, having committed suicide on February 25. According to the CFTC, the fraud was uncovered shortly after. So far, the US District Court for the Western District of North Carolina has “entered an order freezing the assets of defendants and relief defendants, appointed a receiver, and granting other relief, in order to marshal all assets and funds and achieve a fair and equitable distribution of assets to the defrauded customers.”
The CFTC’s civil complaint also names Kramer’s wife Rhonda and Forest Glenn LLC, a horse farm owned by the Kramers, as relief defendants.