CFTC v. Eshaq M. Nawabi, Nawabi Enterprise and Hyperion Consulting Inc. (ponzi schemes, 2022)

Settled

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In April 2022 the CFTC sued California man Eshaq Nawabi and his companies over an alleged forex pool that paid earlier participants with later deposits. A December 2022 consent order found them liable and imposed permanent bans, and on April 3, 2024 a second consent order imposed $4.5 million in restitution and a $4.5 million civil penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$4.5m

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$4.5m

Alleged gain

—

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The CFTC announced the complaint on May 10, 2022 (release 8524-22) in the Eastern District of California, covering October 2019 to date. False account statements concealed the misappropriation. No ban had been imposed.

The record named the defendants as "California Man and His Companies" and listed a trading ban that was not imposed; both are corrected.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes it as a scheme paying earlier investors with later investors' money. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

Outcome. The CFTC's release 8892-24 (April 15, 2024) says the Eastern District of California entered a consent order imposing restitution and a civil monetary penalty on Nawabi, doing business as Nawabi Enterprise, and Hyperion Consulting, and that it fully resolves the action. The order itself is dated April 3, 2024 and requires $4,500,000 in restitution, jointly and severally, and a $4,500,000 civil monetary penalty. It follows an earlier liability consent order entered December 6, 2022, which enjoined further violations and, per the release, permanently barred them from registering with the CFTC or trading on a registered entity. Both orders were by consent, so the findings were not tried. Only the penalty is stored; restitution has no field here.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Ponzi schemes — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2022-05-10 CFTC release published
2. 2024-04-03 Consent order for civil monetary penalty and restitution entered

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• CFTC release
• CFTC order or complaint
• CFTC release 8892-24: consent order against Nawabi and Hyperion
• Consent order (E.D. Cal., Doc. 73)

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.