US Court Orders Tony Hunter's 'Double Act Fraud' to Pay $11.7 million

U.S. financial markets watchdog, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), obtained federal court orders against North Carolina based fraudster Tony D. Hunter for fraudulent activity in relation to regulated products.

Hunter who ran managed account firms, Prestige Capital Advisors, LLC (Prestige), and D2W Capital Management, LLC (D2W), is obliged to pay more than $4.3 million in restitution to defrauded pool and managed account clients and imposing civil monetary penalties of approximately $7.5 million.

Prosecutors found the defendant guilty of fraudulent solicitation, misappropriation and Regulation violations. In addition, the court Order imposes permanent trading and registration bans against the Defendants and prohibits them from violating the anti-fraud and other provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC Regulations, as charged.

Details of the case show that Hunter's firm, Prestige fraudulently solicited and accepted more than $4.7 million from multiple pool participants for investment in one or more commodity pools that traded among other things, commodities and futures contracts.

The managed accounts company was also found to have falsified trading statements and published counterfeit trading results on public website BarclayHedge where potential investors can track the past performance of fund managers.

Hunter was found to have sent false trading results to at least one Prestige pool participant, and issued false account statements. The CFTC further explained in the Order; that an estimated $2.3 million of pool participant funds was misappropriated by Prestige, and D2W, a managed Forex account service, sent false account statements to at least one client.

Both firms were given an Order of Default Judgement and Permanent Injunction, furthermore the courts have imposed civil monetary penalties of approximately $6.9 million on Prestige and $280,000 on D2W.

The court entered a subsequent Order on February 22, 2013, requiring Prestige to pay restitution of over $4.1 million and D2W to pay restitution of $85,250.