David L. Ortiz who owns Goyep International, Inc. and Royal Returns, Inc. in Florida, has had an anti-fraud enforcement action filed against him today by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Mr. Ortiz and others were charged with conducting an illegal off-exchange foreign currency (Forex) plan that solicited monies in the sum of $420,000 taken from no less than 10 clients. The defendants were not registered with the CFTC.
The defendants allegedly defrauded their clients in the amount of $232,000 and spent that money on shopping, travelling, dining, renting cars, and remitting sums direct to relief defendants like Loredana Ortiz. The charges were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida by the CFTC onFebruary 23, 2011.
An emergency order – issued on February 24, 2011 by Judge K. Michael Moore – froze the assets of the defendants and barred them from destroying their books and records.
Moreover, since May of 2008, the defendants have been wrongly assuring its clients of 10% in monthly profits and that their monies will be traded in Forex. There were also false claims that Ortiz’ company was duly registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and that Mr. Ortiz had 30 years of trading expertise behind him. Some of the clients were said to have partially withdrawn some of their investments from the defendants, which the latter paid using monies coming from the other clients.
The CFTC has initiated the following claims for relief: recovery of the defendants’ illegal profits, justice to the victimized clients, termination of all the defendants’ active contracts and agreements, imposition of penalties, ban on trading and registration, and avoidance – via a permanent injunction – of other breaches of federal commodities laws that the defendants may still commit in the future.
