CFTC charges North Carolina man over alleged $14 million crypto, futures fraud

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged a North Carolina man and his company after the agency said he swindled about 60 people out of $14 million in a bogus commodity pool that traded a range of assets, including cryptocurrencies.

In a complaint filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, the CFTC accused Trevor Vernon and his company, Argent Capital Management LLC, of fraud. According to the agency, they operated a commodity pool that traded options on equity index futures, equity index futures contracts and crypto.

The CFTC alleges that Vernon and his company lied, in part through quarterly financial updates and monthly performance recap emails, about him being a "successful trader," when instead he was racking up step losses with participants' money. In total, Vernon lost at least $8.6 million trading futures, options and crypto, the agency said. 

"In reality, his trading of participants’ funds resulted in consistent and catastrophic losses," the CFTC said on Tuesday.

The company and Vernon were also not appropriately registered with the CFTC and lied about it, the agency said.

"... the complaint alleges Vernon knowingly made false statements during sworn testimony taken as part of the Commission’s investigation, and the defendants violated multiple registration provisions under the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations," the CFTC said in a statement. 

 The CFTC is seeking monetary fines, disgorgement, restitution, trading and registration bans and a permanent injunction.