A federal court in Ohio has ordered Jared Davis, the mastermind of a $10 million binary options scam, to pay $561,971 in restitution to defrauded victims. Davis operated the fraudulent binary options brands, Option Mint, Option King and Option Queen, between 2012 and 2016 under Erie Marketing, LLC.

Davis Faces Multiple Fines

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced the court order on Friday, noting that the former Ohio resident was hit with permanent registration and trading bans. The judgment comes after action taken against Davis in September 2019 was filed by the US derivatives markets watchdog.

Separately, Davis pleaded guilty to three counts of personal tax evasion and 11 counts of wire fraud on behalf of his firm, Erie Marketing, all of the charges were initiated by the US prosecutors in the Northern District of Ohio.

In the statement by the CFTC, the regulator noted that Davis earlier in January was sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment and a subsequent three years of supervised release. Alongside his company, the binary options operator was hit with other multiple monetary penalties with expected payments now totaling about $7 million.

“He was also ordered to pay a $300,000 fine, $1,039,208 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and to be jointly and severally liable for the debts of Erie Marketing, LLC, including $656,493.20 in restitution to victims and a $4.4 million fine,” the CFTC explained, giving a breakdown of the other penalties.

On the other hand, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against Davis remains pending, the CFTC said. The securities regulator in February 2019 had entered a partial settlement with Davis based on conditions that the court “will determine disgorgement and civil penalties at a later date.”

How Davis Ran the $10M Scam: CFTC

According to the CFTC, Davis perpetrated the scam by deploying internet and website marketing campaigns as well as call centre operators. His activities targeted investors in the US and other countries, touting trading opportunities in off-exchange binary options on commodities, forex, stocks and indices.

However, the binary options executive had other plans as he made ‘misrepresentations’ and hid ‘material facts’ about the trading business from investors. For instance, he failed to disclose that he “effectively took the opposing positions on each trade,” the CFTC said, adding that Davis behind the scenes frequently manipulated the settings of his options trading software in order “to increase the odds of customers losses."

Meanwhile, David Butler, the operator of binary options firms, SpotFN and Binary FN, recently pleaded guilty to defrauding investors of $2.9 million through binary options schemes. Furthermore, California-based John Black and his affiliated firms were recently slapped with over $29 million in restitution and penalties.