The Honorable Edmond E. Chang of the Northern District Court of Illinois granted a request by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to enter a default against Kobe Young, the owner of Young Emerging Strategies LLC.
The request was granted due to service served and lack of response to the complaint.
In November 2023, the CFTC filed a complaint against Coby Young and his company, Young Emerging Strategies LLC, both of Illinois. The complaint charges the defendants with fraud in connection with leveraged trading, margined or funded retail foreign currency transactions (retail foreign exchange), commodity manager fraud, registration violations, disclosure and recordkeeping violations, and pooling of assets.
In its complaint, the CFTC seeks restitution to participants, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, civil monetary penalties, permanent bans from trading and registration, and a permanent injunction against further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations, as charged.
The complaint alleges that, from at least August 2019 through the present, the defendants directly solicited individuals via website, social media and in person to participate in retail forex trading courses. Defendants approached certain class participants to join a retail foreign exchange trading group operated by Defendants.
The defendants received approximately $300,000 from the pool participants by promising, among other things, to double the investments of many or all of the pool participants through retail forex trading. However, the defendants misappropriated most of the funds for personal expenses, cash withdrawals and payments to other group participants. The defendants also failed to register with the CFTC, provide necessary disclosures to participants and maintain required records.