While I failed to blog about the proprietary trading firm Nonko Trading that gave certain clients paper-trade accounts and then just took their money when they ‘lost’ it trading, the SEC recently sued two more people who were involved in that alleged fraud and sadly both of them are from my state of Michigan.
The original lawsuit by the SEC against Nonko Trading and many people who were involved in running it was SEC v. Chamroomrat. You can see the docket of that case on CourtListener. The SEC announced winning a final judgment in that case almost a year ago.
The final judgment, entered on September 18, 2017 by the Honorable Kevin McNulty of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, permanently enjoins Naris Chamroonrat, of Bangkok, Thailand, from violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Sections 10(b), 15(a)(1) and 20(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder and orders him liable for disgorgement of $918,147.31, plus interest of $71,549.24, the payment of which is deemed satisfied by the restitution ordered in the parallel criminal case. Chamroonrat, who pled guilty in a parallel criminal case, is awaiting sentencing
The new lawsuit is against Jeffrey Goldman and Christopher Eikenberry. See the case docket on CourtListener. Read the complaint (pdf). In addition to the SEC lawsuit, Eikenberry and Goldman are facing criminal charges, just announced by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey.
Excerpt from the SEC complaint:
1. This case concerns Defendants Goldman’s and Eikenberry’s participation in an illegal scheme to establish and operate an offshore broker-dealer, Nonko Trading (“Nonko”), without the necessary registration and later to defraud Nonko’s customers by providing them with fake trading accounts and stealing funds that these customers deposited with the firm. The scheme resulted in at least $1.4 million in net losses to over 260 investors in over 30 countries worldwide, including over 180 investors in the United States.
2. Between 2011 and early 2013, Goldman and Eikenberry, who both had extensive experience in day-trading operations, helped their associate Naris Chamroonrat (“Chamroonrat”) to establish Nonko as a purported offshore proprietary trading firm that would secretly cater to U.S.-based day-traders while also evading the U.S. broker-dealer registration requirements. Once Nonko was established, starting in late 2013, Goldman and Eikenberry worked with Chamroonrat and his Nonko associates to develop and execute a fraudulent scheme to pocket Nonko’s customer deposits by secretly providing certain customers with fake accounts instead of real ones.
3. As alleged in the SEC’s Amended Complaint against Chamroonrat and his Nonko associates Yaniv Avnon (“Avnon”), Ran Armon (“Armon”), and Adam Plumer (“Plumer”), as well as Avnon’s entity G Six Trading Y.R Ltd (“G6”) and Chamroonrat’s entity NKO Holdings Co. Ltd, the Nonko team lured investors to day-trade through Nonko with promises of generous leverage, low trading commissions, and low minimum deposit requirements. But instead of providing investors with access to a live securities trading platform, as it had promised, the Nonko team secretly provided certain investors with training accounts that merely simulated the placement and execution of trade orders. So when these investors sent funds to Nonko and proceeded to place what they believed were securities trade orders, the orders were never actually routed to the markets. Instead, the Nonko team simply stole the investors’ money, using it, among other things, to fund their personal expenses and to make Ponzi-like payments to those investors who asked to close their Nonko accounts.
4. As set forth below, Goldman and Eikenberry were knowing and substantial participants in the training accounts fraud, providing the rest of the Nonko team with extensive guidance and direction, including on the specific lies that the Nonko team should tell investors in order to evade detection. Goldman and Eikenberry also provided the Nonko scheme with operational and back-office support.
5. Goldman and Eikenberry deliberately concealed their involvement with Nonko by, among other things, avoiding direct contact with Nonko’s customers and inserting multiple intermediary entities, both offshore and domestic, between Nonko and themselves.
6. For their roles in the scheme, Goldman and Eikenberry collected an agreed-upon portion of the fraud’s proceeds, which they funneled to themselves through bank accounts of the intermediary entities.
See the announcement of criminal charges. Linked from that page are the Goldman indictment (pdf) and the Eikenberry information (pdf). From the announcement:
Christopher D. Eikenberry, 49, of Birmingham, Michigan, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Jose L. Linares in Newark federal court to an information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud.
Jeffrey E. Goldman, 52, of West Bloomfield, Michigan, who was arrested today in Michigan, is charged by indictment with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of wire fraud. He is scheduled to appear today before U.S. Magistrate Judge David Grande in Detroit federal court.
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The conspiracy count carries a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or twice the gain or loss from the offense. The wire fraud count carries a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or twice the gain or loss from the offense. Sentencing for Eikenberry is scheduled for Dec. 12, 2018.
I should point out that this kind of fraud would likely not have occurred were it not for the stupid pattern day trader (PDT) rule that prevents people with accounts smaller than $25,000 from making more than 3 day-trades in any five business-day period. Without that rule there would be little to no interest in offshore brokers and proprietary trading firms.
Disclaimer: I have no position in any stock mentioned above. I have no relationship with any parties mentioned above except that one of the trading platforms I use is DAS Trader Pro and that is owned by DAS which is the company that alerted the traders that the accounts they were using were paper-trading accounts. This blog has a terms of use that is incorporated by reference into this post; you can find all my disclaimers and disclosures there as well.
Thank you!