Unregistered Commodity Pool Operator and Its CEO Face CFTC Charges for Fraudulent Scheme

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that it has filed a civil enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida against Aureus Revenue Group LLC (Aureus), a Florida entity, and its owner and chief executive officer, Emir Jesus Matos Camargo (Matos), alleging a fraudulent scheme to solicit and receive at least $1.5 million from at least 32 pool participants to invest in commodity pools.

As alleged in the complaint, from approximately September 2019 through November 2022, Matos fraudulently solicited customers by representing Aureus could guarantee commodity pool returns of 1.5–3.75% each month. 

Aureus and Matos also sent prospective pool participants a fictitious license to falsely show the CFTC licensed Aureus as an investment fund. This fictitious license contained a counterfeit CFTC seal, a forged signature of a former CFTC Commissioner, and a fictitious license number. 

In exchange for their contributions, they gave pool participants “warranty checks” — checks drawn on Aureus’ bank accounts for the full amount contributed. These warranty checks provided pool participants with a false sense of security. In reality, the warranty checks were written on bank accounts with insufficient funds to honor the checks. 

The complaint alleges that Aureus and Matos engaged in limited and unprofitable futures trading and instead misappropriated most of the money they received from pool participants. Some pool funds were misappropriated for Aureus’ benefit to pay certain pool participants guaranteed monthly returns using funds from other pool participants, in the manner of a Ponzi scheme, rather than from the defendants’ claimed trading profits. They used other misappropriated funds to pay for, among other things, Matos’ rent, living and travel expenses, and personal taxes.  

As further alleged in the complaint, Aureus failed to register with the CFTC as a commodity pool operator, and Matos failed to register with the CFTC as an associated person.