The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is pushing for a default in its lawsuit against Lions of Forex LLC (LOF).
In its application, filed on December 19, 2023, the regulator explains that the Court should enter a default against LOF for its failure to respond to the complaint.
The CFTC complaint, filed in the Southern District Court of Florida on September 28, 2023, alleges that from at least January 2019 to at least March 2021, Roberto Pulido a/k/a Berto Delvanicci, aided and abetted by Lions of Forex LLC (LOF ), fraudulently soliciting clients for the purported purpose of trading leverage or retail non-forex margin in accounts to be managed on their behalf.
Some of the defendants’ solicited customers subscribed to a retail forex signal trading service offered by LOF for which LOF offered to send retail currency buy or sell messages for a monthly fee and, for a higher monthly fee, offered live one time – one training session with “Berto Delvanicci”.
In fraudulently soliciting these customers, the defendants used mail and other means or means of interstate commerce, e.g. social media platforms, the LOF website, texts and/or other forms of electronic and telephone communications.
Pulido, aided and abetted by LOF, falsely represented to clients that they would earn guaranteed monthly profits by having Pulido use their discretion to purport to trade retail forex on their behalf and that clients could withdraw their funds and to return them at any time.
Based on these fraudulent statements and omissions, customers were fraudulently induced to transfer at least $175,000 to bank accounts in the names of LOF and others, all controlled by Pulido, with the alleged intent that Pulido would use his discretion to trade retail currency on their behalf.
Customers have not been paid their guaranteed monthly profits as promised and, despite customer requests to Pulido and/or LOF to return their money, customer funds totaling at least $170,000 have not been returned to customers.
At the time such statements were made, Pulido acted intentionally or recklessly by falsely guaranteeing trading profits and falsely stating that clients could withdraw their funds and return them at any time. LOF knew that these representations made by Pulido were false.
The default entry is usually followed by a default judgment, which will describe the penalties (fines, injunctions, etc.) in this case.