Friday, February 6, 2009

Minnesota Man Arrested For Running A Ponzi Scheme Investment Fraud

Charles "Chuck" E. Hays, 56, of Rosemount, Minnesota, was arrested yesterday on charges he ran a Ponzi-type investment fraud scheme that bilked investors out of at least $5.5 million. Specifically, Hays was charged with wire fraud, mail fraud and violations of the Commodities Exchange Act. His assets were frozen by a federal judge who also ordered Hays not to destroy any documents. Hays allegedly promised investors a 3 percent per month trading stock index and crude oil futures through his company, Crossfire Trading, LLC. However, neither Hays, nor his company are registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. According to reports, Hays lost much of the investment funds in bad investments and tried to hide the losses with phony statements — while at the same time buying a $3 million yacht.

Read the story here, here and here.

Read the DOJ announcement here.

It seems as though there is a new Ponzi scheme revealed practically every day these days. According to the Securities & Exchange Commission, the magnitude of Ponzi schemes has increased. Read the story here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You might add to all of this, the fact that HE, “Chuck Hays” managed to convince Kathy Lien and Boris Schlossberg to include a full chapter about him in their book “Millionaire Traders”. Some of those being ’scammed’ were pushed along by the supposed “authority” of this book. OK, dumb us, I know. But there is a trail of misleading information on Chuck Hays. Fake Brokerage statements, fake monthly statements, fake phone calls and emails expressing how well things were going during the ‘down market’.

The SOB is a thief and should be given the max allowable. The total he stole is much closer to $35 million - not ‘just’ $5 million that has been reported so far!