Bitcoin, binary options fraudster remains inaccessible, CFTC obtains default order

All efforts by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to reach Dillon Michael Dean, accused of misappropriating more than $1 million from investors in a binary options and virtual currency scam, have been futile, as Mr Dean has remained inaccessible. This becomes clear from the latest documents filed by the Commission with the New York Eastern District Court.

On Tuesday, May 8, 2018, the CFTC informed the Court that Dean had failed to respond to the Complaint launched against him by the regulator. Let’s recall that the CFTC had tried to contact the alleged fraudster. There had been visits to his addresses in Colorado, emails and phone messages, as well as calls. The regulator even resorted to a skip trace performed on March 15, 2018, using CLEAR, an online investigative platform commonly utilized by law enforcement agencies and operated by Thomson Reuters. But it revealed no further address, email, or telephone information for Dean.

A Deputy with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office has spoken with a woman who identified herself as Christina Kielnecker who stated that Dean no longer lived at the residence. She stated that “he packed up and moved his belongings out of the residence, after all the stuff started coming down.”

That is why, the CFTC was permitted to serve the Complaint via email to Dean. But there has been no reply, the regulator said on Tuesday.

Due to the lack of answer from the defendant, the Court’s Clerk has granted the CFTC’s motion for a default order against Dean. This is usually followed by a motion for a default judgement by the Court.

In its Complaint, filed with the New York Eastern District Court on January 18, 2018, the CFTC charges Dean and his company The Entrepreneurs Headquarters Limited (TEH) of violating numerous clauses of the the Commodity Exchange Act and the Commission Regulations. The CFTC says that from approximately April 2017 through the present the Defendants engaged in a fraudulent scheme to solicit at least $1.1 million worth of Bitcoin from more than 600 members of the public to participate in a pooled investment vehicle for trading commodity interests.

During the Relevant Period, TEH also failed to register with the Commission as a commodity pool operator, and Dean failed to register with the Commission as an associated person of a CPO.

Dean and other representatives of TEH have launched another “trading venture” called Real Trade Profits (RTP), which solicits new customers in a manner very similar to TEH—seeking investments in Bitcoin for a pooled investment, professing expertise and consistent results in binary options trading.

The case is captioned Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Dean et al (2:18-cv-00345).