Rajiv Patel dead after CFTC exposes $9.8 million fraud
His unprofitable trading resulted in significant losses of the pool participants’ funds, but Patel falsely reported to pool participants that their investments were accruing interest.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida entered a restraining order to preserve records and freeze assets controlled by defendants Rajiv Patel also known as Ravi or Raj, and his company Bluprint, following a complaint filed by the CFTC.
The court, however, canceled a preliminary injunction hearing that was set for January 31, 2022, due to the death of Patel. The cause of death was not disclosed by the authorities.
CFTC charged Patel with $9.8 million fraud
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged Rajiv Patel and Bluprint for defrauding at least 16 pool participants of approximately $9.8 million through a commodity pool that purported to trade commodity futures and options.
According to the complaint, from approximately June 2019 to the present, Rajiv Patel used Bluprint to misappropriate pool participants’ funds and use the funds to pay personal expenses and to trade commodity futures and options in personal trading accounts.
His unprofitable trading resulted in significant losses of the pool participants’ funds, but Patel falsely reported to pool participants that their investments were accruing interest.
He also made false statements to an introducing broker and to futures commission merchants that held the defendants’ trading accounts and pool participants’ funds in order to conceal the fraud.
In addition to the fraud and concealment, Patel failed to comply with CFTC registration requirements and disclosure and reporting requirements.
ROFX charged as FX scam
The CFTC has recently charged Ukraine-based Borys Konovalenko, Canada-based Alla Skala, as well as three individuals based in the United States: Jase Davis, Timothy Stubbs, Anna Shymko, and Timothy Stubbs, for an FX fraudulent scheme.
All five individuals are involved in the alleged FX scam ROFX and acted as a common enterprise to fraudulently solicit and misappropriate at least $58 million from U.S. and international customers for purported trading in forex.
The scheme may have lasted for nearly four years – from January 2018 through September 2021 – and over 1,100 customers opened trading accounts through the ROFX.net website and deposited funds via checks or wires to bank accounts in the name of one or more of the companies, all controlled by the individual defendants, the CFTC stated.
The agency alleged the defendants falsely claimed to trade forex utilizing a highly successful automated trading robot with guaranteed coverage of losses.
During the relevant period, the defendants received at least $58 million from customers, all of which was misappropriated by wiring to non-trading corporate entities in Poland, Thailand, and elsewhere, as well as to the individual defendants themselves, said the CFTC.
