The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a lawsuit on September 30 against Traders Domain FX LTD and its co-founders, Frederick Teddy Joseph Safranko and David Negus-Romvari. The agency alleges they orchestrated a multi-layered Ponzi scheme targeting retail commodity transactions, defrauding thousands of investors since late 2019.

The lawsuit names sixteen defendants in total. These include corporate entities such as Ares Global LTD, operating as TruBlueFX, Algo Capital LLC, and Centurion Capital Group INC. Individual defendants include Robert Collazo Jr., Juan Herman, John Fortini, Steven Likos, Michael Shannon Sims, Holton Buggs Jr., Alejandro Santiestaban, Gabriel Beltran, and Archie Rice. Each is accused of facilitating the fraudulent operation in various capacities.

The Traders Domain began soliciting investor funds by at least November 2019. Its purported purpose was trading leveraged or margined retail commodity transactions, primarily XAU/USD, or gold against the US dollar. Investors placed funds into both pooled and individual accounts, believing the money would generate profits from active trading.

The CFTC alleges this represented trading, along with any associated profits, was entirely fabricated. Traders Domain FX LTD, through its officers and agents, misappropriated customer funds. The company accepted money via third-party bank accounts, payment processors, and cryptocurrency wallets. It then failed to use these funds for actual trading, instead diverting them. Commissions were charged on profits that never existed.

The fraud continued even after The Traders Domain ceased operations. Ares Global, doing business as TruBlueFX, allegedly took over as its successor. Both Traders Domain and Ares Global refused to return customer funds, despite repeated attempts by thousands of investors to access or liquidate their accounts. This