The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a motion for default judgment against FX and binary options fraudster Patrick Wonsey.

The CFTC motion, seen by FX News Group, seeks restitution, civil monetary penalty and permanent injunction against the defendant.

The CFTC requests that the Court order Wonsey to make restitution to the pool participants. Here, the pool participants’ losses were proximately caused by Wonsey’s violations. Wonsey misappropriated pool participant funds in violation of 7 U.S.C. § 6(b)(2)(A) and (C).

Restitution is defined as the amount of money that the wrongdoer wrongfully gained by their fraudulent misconduct. Here, Wonsey misappropriated approximately $2,700,431 from pool participants.

According to the CFTC’s motion, this case warrants a significant fine against Wonsey because he committed numerous violations across several provisions of the Act by engaging in dishonest and fraudulent behavior in connection with purported retail forex and commodity options trading, misappropriating customer funds, and ignoring his regulatory responsibilities as a CPO.

Therefore, the CFTC requests that the Court order Wonsey to pay a fine of $8,101,293, which represents treble of the $2,700,431 sum of pool participant funds that Wonsey misappropriated.

Let’s recall that this lawsuit was filed on September 26, 2023.

The CFTC complaint alleges that, from at least January 2017 through September 2022, Wonsey, individually and doing business as One Bell & Associates, fraudulently solicited a minimum of $3.4 million from at least 50 individuals to trade, among other things, margined or leveraged retail foreign currency transactions and binary options on and off CFTC-regulated exchanges.

In his solicitations, the defendant misrepresented his past trading successes, chances of future profitability, frequency of payouts, and the lack of risk involved with trading retail forex, digital assets or binary options through him. CFTC further alleged that Wonsey misappropriated at least $2.7 million of pool participant funds.

Additionally, CFTC charged Defendant with commingling pool participant funds with his own, not being registered as a commodity pool operator, and failure to set up and operate the commodity pool as required.

Accordingly the defendant was accused of engaging in acts and practices that violate Sections 2(c)(2)(C)(iii)(I)(cc), 4b(a)(2)(A) and (C), 4c(b), 4o(1)(A)-(B), and 4m(1) of the Act, 7 U.S.C. §§ 22(c)(2)(C)(iii)(I)(cc), 6b(a)(2)(A), (C), 6c(b), 6o(1)(A)-(B), 6m(1), and Regulations 5.2(b)(1), (3), 4.20(a) and (c),5.3(a)(2)(i), 5.4 and 32.4(a) and (c), 17 C.F.R. § 5.2(b)(1), (3), 4.20(a), (c), 5.3(a)(2)(i), 5.4, 32.4(a), (c) (2022).