Sep 4 2009

Beau Diamond arrested and charged with $37 million Ponzi scheme

A month ago I published details of the alleged Ponzi scheme operated by Beau Diamond who appeared to have lost over $38 millions of investors money and then disappeared.

Reuters reports that yesterday he was finally arrested and charged.

A Florida man has been arrested on charges he ran a $37 million Ponzi scheme that guaranteed customers a monthly return of up to 5 percent on money invested in foreign exchange trading, authorities said on Thursday.

Beau Diamond, a 31-year-old resident of Sarasota, was arrested late Wednesday based on a complaint against him and his Diamond Ventures LLC trading firm from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a statement from the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida said.

Since April 2006, the complaint said, Diamond solicited about $37 million from at least 200 clients “for the purported purpose of trading off-exchange foreign currency (forex) contracts.”

Diamond suffered sizable losses through his trades in foreign currency, the complaint said. But he delivered, at least in part, on his “guaranteed monthly returns” of 2.75 percent to 5 percent by allegedly making fraudulent use of customers’ deposits.

The CFTC complaint said Diamond, who was charged with operating a Ponzi scheme, offered commissions to clients who referred new customers to Diamond Ventures. He was being held pending a court hearing in Tampa on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Tom Brown; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

1 Comments on this post

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  1. Casey Stubbs said:

    Thanks for keeping us informed about the development of this story.

    This type of scheme is something we must remember when attempting to get help in the Forex Market. I posted a link to this post here.

    http://www.winnersedgetrading.com/trade-of-the-day/forex-traders-beware-how-to-spot-a-scam

    September 7th, 2009 at 6:15 am


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