The defendants allegedly made material misrepresentations about their identity, financial expertise, physical location, compensation structure, and other material information to lure customers deposit funds and trade binary options.
The Cartu brothers and the Perez brothers lied to their customers that they are offering profitable binary option transaction. They allegedly promised “quick” returns of “60 to 85%.” In reality, most of their customers are losing money.
Additionally, the CFTC alleged that the Cartu brothers operated the defunct payment processor, Greymountain Management Limited, which they used to transfer customer funds for their illegal, off-exchange binary option transactions.
During the relevant period, the defendants processed more than $165 million credit card payments for binary options transactions that were executed on an internet-based trading platform operated by Masten and the Cartu brothers.
Furthermore, the CFTC alleged that the defendants used Greymountain to distribute millions of dollars in profits to offshore accounts.
