“US COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION FILES MASSIVE LAW SUIT AGAINST CANADIANS” !!

“US COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION FILES MASSIVE LAW SUIT  AGAINST CANADIANS” !!    

FROM A
DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW by Monte Friesner >

Financial Crime Consultant for WANTED SA >

Tuesday November 09, 2010 >

WANTED SA has learned this early morning that The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed a massive lawsuit against Kevin L. Harris, 45, of Warren, his companies and three associates in a $20 Million Dollar Ponzi scheme.

Harris already is charged in U.S. District Court with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission lawsuit names Kevin Harris’ brother, Keelan Harris, 34 of Warren; Karen Starr of Barrie, Ontario, Canada, and Patrick Cole and his company, Global Strategic Marketing Inc., both of Mississauga, Ontario, as defendants.

The commission seeks in its lawsuit to remove ill-gotten gains from the defendants; seeks restitution to defrauded customers, civil monetary penalties, permanent injunctions against further violations of federal commodities laws and trading and registration bans.

The complaint, filed in Youngstown, New York Federal Court, charges the defendants with fraud and misappropriation for the operation of the companies Complete Developments LLC and Investment International Inc., which were operated out of the former electrical workers union hall on Parkman Road Northwest in Warren.

Kevin Harris pleaded guilty to the criminal charges this week and is expected to receive a prison sentence of about eight years when he appears before U.S. Judge Lesley Wells on Jan. 13, 2011 in Cleveland, Ohio.

The complaint alleges the defendants ran the enterprise from about November 2006 through October 2008 by fraudulently soliciting and accepting millions of dollars from hundreds of individuals to open “professionally managed” accounts for the purported purpose of trading foreign currency (known as Forex), the commission said.

Rather than trading foreign currency on their customers’ behalf, however, Complete Developments LLC and Investment International Inc. used new customers’ money to pay purported interest to existing customers and misappropriated customer funds, the complaint charges.

Specifically, according to the complaint, Complete Developments LLC and Investment International Inc.; Complete Development’s president and CEO Kevin Harris, Investment International’s Director Starr and Global Strategic Marketing Inc., Complete Development’s exclusive marketing agent, made numerous false representations in soliciting customers.

The complaint also charges that the defendants concealed from customers that Kevin and Keelan Harris and Starr had been previously convicted of multiple offenses, including fraud.

Global Strategic Marketing Inc. President Cole, as a controlling person of GSM, is liable for knowingly inducing GSM’s violations, according to the compliant.

The complaint also charges Complete Developments, Investment International Inc. and Kevin and Keelan Harris with misappropriation by transferring customer funds to Kevin Harris’ and Starr’s joint personal trading account and using customer funds to pay personal expenses, including mortgages, car leases, cell phone bills, airline tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission complaint also names as a relief defendant Majestic Enterprises Collision Repair, Inc., of Warren and other companies, which allegedly received customer funds as a result of the defendants’ fraudulent conduct.

Most of the defrauded customers were from the Toronto, Ontario, area, but some were from northern Ohio and elsewhere in the United States, federal officials have said.

The facts and opinions stated in this article are those of the author and not those of WANTED SA. WANTED SA does not warrant the accuracy of any facts and opinions stated in this article; does not endorse them, and accepts no responsibility for them.