New York FX investment fraudsters ordered to pay $11.6M in sanctions

cftc penalty

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) obtained judgments against each of the Defendants and Relief Defendants in a fraudulent, Forex scheme involving misappropriation of customer funds and false statements to customers to conceal the fraud.

The Orders impose permanent registration and trading bans against the Defendants and order the Defendants to pay over $11.6 million in sanctions and the Relief Defendants to disgorge a total of $760,375 of ill-gotten gains.

Specifically, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, entered the following Orders:

1) on December 18, 2015, an Order of default judgment against Defendants EJS Capital Management (EJS) and Alex Vladimir Ekdeshman and Relief Defendants Executive Services of Florida, LLC (ESF) and Executive Management of Montana, Inc. (EMM)

2) on December 21, 2015, an Order of summary judgment against Defendant Edward J. Servider and Relief Defendant Michael Vilner;

3) on October 26, 2016, an Order of summary judgment against Relief Defendant Alisa Ekdeshman.

These Orders stem from a Complaint filed by the CFTC on May 1, 2014, which alleged that Defendants EJS, Ekdeshman, and Servider engaged in a fraudulent FX scheme.

The Court’s Orders find that between April 2013 and May 2014, Defendants EJS, Ekdeshman, and Servider solicited and accepted over $2 million from approximately 112 members of the general public to trade forex and misappropriated most of the customer funds for their own personal and business expenses.

The Orders further find that Defendants provided false account statements to customers that listed purported profits from forex trading, although no customer funds were traded in forex and no profits were generated from forex trading. In addition, the Orders find that EJS’s website contained a false performance report of EJS’s trading profits.

The Orders require Defendants EJS, Ekdeshman, and Servider to jointly

1) pay over $2.3 million in restitution to Defendants’ victims;

2) disgorge ill-gotten gains of over $2.3 million;

3) pay over $7 million in civil monetary penalties. EJS, Ekdeshman, and Servider will obtain a dollar-for-dollar credit against their restitution obligation as a result of any payments made in satisfaction of their disgorgement obligations.

EJS, Ekdeshman, and Servider also are permanently banned from trading and registration with the CFTC and are permanently enjoined from violating the anti-fraud provisions, among other provisions, of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations, as charged.

The Orders also require Relief Defendants Vilner and his companies, ESF and EMM, to jointly disgorge $555,000, which represents the amount of ill-gotten gains they received from EJS and to which they have no legitimate claim. Relief Defendant Alisa Ekdeshman, Defendant Alex Ekdeshman’s wife, is required to disgorge $205,375, which is the amount of ill-gotten gains she received from EJS and to which she had no legitimate claim.

To view the full release from the CFTC click here.

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