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CFTC charges Gold Chasers with fraud

Chris Hamblin, Editor, London, 3 March 2017

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HNW investors are bullish about physical gold; the Commodity Futures Trading Commission of the United States has uncovered a Ponzi scheme that targeted them.

The CFTC has commenced a federal civil enforcement action in Florida charging Carlos Javier Ramirez, Gold Chasers Inc and Royal Leisure International Inc with misappropriating customers' funds and engaging in fraudulent sales solicitations in connection with the purported purchase of physical gold.

According to the CFTC complaint, between 2012 and 2016, the defendants fraudulently offered contracts to sell gold to at least 20 customers who reside in the US and elsewhere, marketing one of their schemes through a website. They allegedly fraudulently obtained at least $4.1 million from customers. Of that amount, they purportedly misappropriated $3.95 million of their customers’ funds, and also paid false profits to some customers, in the manner of a Ponzi scheme.

In order to entice customers, they allegedly promised to sell customers gold at a discount made possible by their purchases of gold at discount prices directly from the mines of Central and South America. However, they allegedly failed to buy any gold at all.

The complaint alleges that the defendants promised falsely to sell gold to customers at a price that was related to the London Bullion Market Association’s prices, to give them actual gold bars and to give them a “20% free bonus” payable in gold.

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