The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced today that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio entered a Consent Order for Permanent Injunction and Other Equitable Relief against Glen Galemmo finding that Galemmo fraudulently solicited individuals to place funds in a commodity pool to trade commodity futures, commodities, stocks and bonds and misappropriated millions of dollars.
The order imposes on Galemmo permanent trading and registration bans.
According to the order, from February 18, 2010 through at least July 17, 2013, Galemmo, through his firm, QFC, LLC, made material misrepresentations to commodity pool participants, including falsely illustrating that the pool generated returns of 17 to 40% from 2008 through 2012.
Galemmo also failed to disclose that he failed to trade pool participants’ funds for a substantial period, and sent investors fraudulent account statements showing false purported trading profits.
Through his scheme, Galemmo solicited more than $116 million from pool participants, which he represented would be used for trading futures, commodities and other financial products. In fact, Galemmo only deposited approximately $4.7 million of over $116 million solicited from pool participants into futures accounts that he controlled and sustained total trading losses of approximately $1.2 million.
Galemmo also allegedly withdrew or caused to be withdrawn $2.7 million in pool participants’ funds from these futures accounts. Galemmo misappropriated the vast majority of the remaining funds for personal and other business uses.