The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a complaint on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, accusing Cash FX Group and three individuals of operating a $950 million foreign‑exchange investment scheme linked to cryptocurrency.
The defendants are Cash FX and its chief executive Huascar Jose Lopez Castillo of Brazil, The Conversion Pros and its chief executive Ronald Pope of Oregon, and Florida resident Justin Halladay. The CFTC alleges the group ran a multilevel‑marketing Ponzi operation, soliciting more than $950 million from retail investors for a purported commodity pool that would trade foreign‑currency contracts.
According to the complaint, the promoters falsely claimed that pool assets were managed by expert traders, proprietary algorithms and artificial intelligence, and they promised investors returns of up to 15 % per week. The agency says the defendants conducted only minimal forex trading, misappropriated the bulk of the funds, and used new investor contributions to pay fabricated profits while funneling millions of dollars to each of the three defendants.
Participants were also provided with false accounting statements, and the CFTC estimates that investors lost at least $406 million. "The Division of Enforcement has continued to refocus on its core mission of protecting the public from fraud and manipulation," CFTC Director of Enforcement David I. Miller said.
The lawsuit follows a recent CFTC filing of a new regulatory action covering crypto‑asset transactions for White House review, a move that came after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, which sought to create a federal framework for crypto markets.
