The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has requested the Court to impose a heavy fine on Damien Moran, head of Crown Bullion, Inc. and Bright Future Financial LLC.

The CFTC filed the relevant documents with the Texas Northern District Court on March 19, 2025.

The law authorizes the Commission to obtain a civil monetary penalty of up to three times the monetary gain to the defendants. The monetary gain to the defendants in this case is $6,316,891.83 which represents the amount of customers net deposits, less the amount of funds received by customers and further reduced by business expenses in the amount of $926,027.

Triple the amount of the monetary gains is therefore $18,950,675.49. Thus, the CFTC requested that the Court impose a civil penalty of $18,950,675.49 due to the grave nature of their conduct which violated core anti-fraud provisions of the Act.

Let’s recall that the CFTC filed its action against Damien Moran, and precious metals dealer companies Crown Bullion, Inc. and Bright Future Financial LLC (also d/b/a Oakhurst Metals) in September 2023. The defendants were charged with fraudulently soliciting customers to purchase precious metals in self-directed individual retirement accounts, and misappropriating customer funds and assets.

As the complaint alleges, the defendants received more than $7 million from over 100 people, mainly elderly and retirement-aged, since March 2018 in their ongoing scheme, and have misappropriated most of those funds, in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations.

The complaint alleges beginning in March 2018, the defendants targeted elderly and retirement-aged persons, soliciting them to purchase precious metals from Bright Future, Oakhurst Metals, or Crown Bullion through self-directed IRA accounts. In their scheme, the defendants lured victims into contact with a telephone sales representative through false or deceptive advertisements touting the safety and security of precious metals investments; the benefits of investing in precious metals through a self-directed IRA; and the experience and expertise of the defendants in guiding customers in precious metals investments.

After customers deposited funds with IRA custodians, hand-picked by the defendants, the defendants issued fraudulent invoices to the custodian, causing the transfer of funds or assets from the custodian to the defendants. The defendants then misappropriated most of the funds they received, purchasing metals for only a fraction of their total transactions and often at vastly inflated prices.

As alleged in the complaint, more than a hundred victims have transferred more than $7 million in funds or assets to the defendants, mostly from their self-directed IRAs, and the defendants misappropriated most of those funds.