Court levies fines for currency exchange scheme

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) obtained a supplemental consent order requiring defendant Jacob Juma Omukwe of the Wisconsin Dells and his companies, JadeFX, LTD and Jade Investments Group LLC, to pay more than $2.6 million in restitution and civil monetary penalties to settle a CFTC anti-fraud enforcement action filed in March 2011.
The CFTC alleged that Omukwe operated a multi-million dollar fraudulent off-exchange retail foreign currency (forex) scheme through the website www.jadefx.com and fraudulently solicited and misappropriated more than $3.2 million from customers worldwide to trade forex.
The complaint also alleged registration violations.
The court’s supplemental order, entered by Chief Judge William M. Conley of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, sets judgment for restitution and civil monetary penalties and requires Omukwe, JadeFX, and Jade to pay $1,302,656 in restitution and a $1,302,656 in civil monetary penalty.
The court found that Omukwe, JadeFX, and Jade violated the Commodity Exchange Act by defrauding customers in connection with forex transactions. The court order permanently prohibits the defendants from engaging in any commodity-related activity and from registering with the CFTC in any capacity.