CFTC seeks certificates of default against fraudulent FX scheme GDLogix and Daniel LaMarco
Daniel LaMarco and his firm GDLogix have failed to file an answer or otherwise move with respect to the CFTC’s complaint.
The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is making progress in its action against Daniel Winston LaMarco and his firm GDLogix Inc. On Wednesday, July 1, 2020, the CFTC submitted a motion for certificates of default against the defendants in this case.
The documents, filed with the New York Eastern District Court and seen by FinanceFeeds, state that the issue of certificates of default against GDLogix and LaMarco is warranted due to GDLogix’s and LaMarco’s failure to file an answer or otherwise move with respect to the CFTC’s Complaint.
Let’s recall that, in July 2017, CFTC filed a civil enforcement action LaMarco and GDLogix Inc., charging them with Forex fraud, commodity pool fraud, and failure to register with the CFTC, as required.
According to the CFTC’s Complaint, from January 2011 through March 2016, LaMarco fraudulently solicited and accepted $1,492,650 from 13 individuals to trade off-exchange leveraged or margined retail derivatives forex contracts in a commodity pool operated by the defendants.
To conceal and perpetuate his fraud, beginning on or about February 2011, LaMarco emailed participants fabricated monthly statements purported to provide the pool’s profits, losses, and net balances of each participant. However, according to the Complaint, all of the information in the monthly statements was false. In reality, LaMarco had lost nearly all of pool participants’ funds through unsuccessful trading and by diverting $630,050 of the total principal invested to some participants as purported “profits” in the nature of a Ponzi scheme.
In a related criminal action involving the same conduct at issue in the CFTC’s case, LaMarco earlier pleaded guilty to one count of commodities fraud and one count of wire fraud. On February 3, 2017, LaMarco was sentenced to 42 months in prison and ordered to pay $872,600 in criminal restitution.
The CFTC should file a proposed default judgment by July 31, 2020. By July 31, 2020, pro se defendants Daniel Winston Lamarco and GDLogix Inc. will have to show cause why a default judgment should not be entered against them.
