Lucrative Pips scammer Kevin Perry jailed, $438,799 in restitution

Rick Steves

Forex scams like Lucrative Pips always get caught sooner or later. This one cost more than $430,000 in losses to investors and 23-year old convicted criminal Kevin Perry will have to pay $438,799 in restitution. Was it worth it?

The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Georgia has announced that Kevin Perry, who ran the investment fraud scheme Lucrative Pips, has been sentenced to three years and five months in federal prison.
The convicted scammer convinced many retail investors that Lucrative Pips was a successful foreign exchange trading enterprise earning substantial profits. By claiming the investors’ initial investments were secure from loss, Mr. Perry was able to easily induce clients to send money.

Kurt R. Erskine, Acting U.S. Attorney, said: “During this pandemic, many have lost jobs and businesses while criminals continued to prey on unsuspecting citizens. Perry’s brazen actions, which included his continued scamming after a complaint was filed ordering him to cease, landed him in prison.”

The Forex trading firm turned out to be not successful at all, but a scam, which resulted in more than $430,000 in losses to investors. Lucrative Pips had never generated the historical returns represented to investors and wasn’t even registered as a commodity pool operator with the CFTC.

Mr. Perry, who started the fraudulent scheme when he was a teenager and is now 23, continued to make fraudulent investment pitches to potential investors even after the CFTC filed a civil complaint against him. After promising an undercover FBI agent that an investment of $10,000 would return a profit of $19,000 to $25,000 per month, the DoJ had enough evidence to convict the felon.

Chris Hacker, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta, said: “Perry carelessly continued his fraudulent investments even after a civil complaint was filed against him, thinking he was untouchable. Hopefully, this sentence sends a message that the FBI will find criminals who greedily prey on investors, no matter how clever they believe their scheme to be.”

Kevin Perry was ordered to pay $438,799 in restitution and a special assessment of $100.

 

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