On-the-run Darren Robinson ordered to pay $11 million for FX Ponzi scam
Darren Robinson scammed 38 people out of $7,196,365.37 through a Forex Ponzi scam. He is currently a fugitive from U.S. law enforcement.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has issued an order of default judgment and a permanent injunction against Darren Robinson and his firm The QYU Holdings Inc. (QYUHI) from trading in any CFTC-regulated markets and registering with the CFTC.
The defendants were also ordered to pay $5,923,515.37 in restitution to defrauded victims and a $5,923,515.37 civil monetary penalty in connection with a fraudulent foreign currency scheme.
Darren Robinson scammed 38 people out of $7,196,365.37
According to the order, Robinson and QYUHI engaged in a multimillion-dollar fraudulent scheme that involved $7,196,365.37 from 38 people to participate in a commodity pool operated by QYUHI for trading in commodity interests, including forex pairs on a leveraged, margined, or financed basis with participants who were not eligible contract participants (retail forex) and forex futures contracts.
Like a typical Ponzi scheme, Robinson misappropriated all of the pool participants’ funds by depositing them directly into QYUHI’s corporate bank account that Robinson controlled. The funds were used to pay Robinson’s personal expenses, including luxury cruises, airfare, luxury vehicle purchases, real property purchases, credit cards payments, and other daily living expenses. Approximately $1,272,850 of later-in-time participants’ funds were used to pay earlier-in-time participants purported “profits” and/or “redemptions”.
Darren Robinson is currently a fugitive from U.S. law enforcement with an active warrant for his arrest that has yet to be executed.
Robinson’s QYU claimed $100k would grow into $2 million in 8 six years
According to court records, Robinson operated a supposed trading firm known as “QYU,” which was located in Panama and the Cayman Islands. QYU represented to investors that it was consistently generating stellar investment results.
For example, in one QYU document, the firm claimed that a $100,000 investment into its fund in 2014 would have grown to over $2 million by 2021. That same document claimed the fund did not have a single losing month over that same period. QYU investors were promised guaranteed returns and told the firm was only paid on trading profits, not investor principal.
The defendant faces up to twenty years in prison on each charge of wire fraud and up to 10 years in prison on the charge of money laundering.
