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Meet the Pollards, a seemingly normal couple who watched their $300,000 investment grow to more than $450,000 according to their monthly account statements.  The investment would have good months and bad months, making anywhere between $2,000 and $10,000 per statement period.  In January, the Pollards learned that the investment was a well-disguised Ponzi scheme, and that all of their money was gone. According to a news article by WPTV NewsChannel 5, the Pollards are among 80 people that fell victim to the scam, making the day in January when they received the news the worst day of their lives.   The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) charged Michael J. Riolo of Boca Raton, and the two companies he owns, LaSalle International Clearing Corporation and Sterling Wentworth Currency Group, Inc., with running a fraudulent foreign currency scam (forex) and providing their customers with false account information.

The CFTC complaint filed May 21, 2009, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Fort Lauderdale Division, alleges that the defendants, from at least June 18, 2008, to the present, failed to disclose to customers that they were the counterparties in each forex transaction entered on behalf of their customers, that they owed millions of dollars to customers, and that they lacked the funds to make these payments as well as any payments for prospective profits.

The complaint also alleges that the defendants sent monthly statements to customers depicting the month-end value for each customer’s account, without disclosing to customers that defendants lacked sufficient cash to pay to customers the purported value of their accounts. The complaint further alleges that these account statements were false since the defendants expressly overstated the total cash available, in some instances by as much as $24.5 million.

The Pollards, along with the other victims, are waiting as the CFTC seeks a permanent injunction, and works to preserve the assets.  If convicted of the 5 counts of mail fraud in connection with the multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme, Riolo could be sentenced to 100 years in prison.  But this will do nothing to refill the victims’ pockets. If you’re normal, like the Pollards, and have invested or plan to invest your money, ask Investor’s Watchdog for a run down on your broker and his firm, before you’re stuck waiting and hoping that you’ll see a fraction of your nest egg again someday.