The CFTC announced that a Texas federal court entered an order of default judgment and permanent injunction against Total Call Group, Inc. and its principals Craig Poe and Thomas Thurmond.
The defendants are charged with issuing false customer account statements and committing forex fraud. From 2006 to October 2008, Thurmond and Poe solicited close to $800,000 from at least four customers to trade forex, falsel representing their financial background to their customers. The defandants lost close to 90% of their funds by August 2008. Despite the losses, they continued to claim the trades were profitable and solicited additional funds from their clients. They lost almost the entirety of the remaining funds by December 2008, but continued to make false statements to their customers.
Poe and Thurmand will pay a civil monetary penalty of $3.24 million and $2.62 million.