The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said an American court has two ordered two binary options scammers to payback a total sum of USD1.8 million to victims.
Westward International Ltd. and Coucarin Holdings Ltd. are to refunds their investors USD211,160 and USD1,565,480, respectively to investors.
The two companies were found to have collected those funds from investors under false pretense.
According to a statement issued by the CFTC, “The Default Judgment Orders, both entered on March 23, 2017, require Westward and Coucarin to disgorge ill-gotten client funds”.
The Default Judgment Orders find that Pecker and Vision fraudulently solicited approximately $3 million from over 120 members of the public in the U.S. and Canada to trade off-exchange binary options. The Default Judgment Orders also find that, rather than trade binary options on behalf of their clients, the Defendants misappropriated almost $2 million of client funds, and diverted those client funds to Relief Defendants, including Westward and Coucarin.
Also, the court also found that Westward and Coucarin did not provide any legitimate services nor had any legitimate entitlement or interest to the client funds, and must disgorge those funds.
CFTC was however in doubt on whether investors might be able to recoup their funds from the fraudsters saying “orders requiring repayment of funds to victims may not result in the recovery of any money lost because the wrongdoers many not have sufficient funds or assets”.
Both Default Judgment Orders arise from a CFTC enforcement anti-fraud action filed against Defendants Neil Pecker and Vision Financial Partners, LLC and Relief Defendants Prometheus Enterprises, Inc., GDCM Trust, Westward, and Coucarin on February 16, 2016.
