CFTC v. Ramirez, Gold Chasers and Royal Leisure International (ponzi schemes, 2017)

Judgment entered

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The CFTC charged Carlos Javier Ramirez and his companies Gold Chasers and Royal Leisure International in February 2017 over gold sales. On February 5, 2019 a Florida federal court ordered about $2.74 million in restitution and about $8.23 million in civil penalties and imposed a permanent injunction and trading, solicitation and registration bans.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$8.2m

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$8.2m

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 complaint alleges that from at least February 2012 to January 2016 the defendants sold contracts for gold, some through a website, to at least 20 customers in the United States, Puerto Rico and abroad, using fraudulent discount claims.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes payments to earlier participants made from later participants' money. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

Outcome. According to the CFTC's release, the Middle District of Florida (Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr.) issued an order on February 5, 2019 against Ramirez and the two companies. Ramirez and Royal Leisure International were ordered to pay $1,980,858 in restitution and a $5,942,574 penalty; Ramirez and Gold Chasers were ordered to pay $761,831 in restitution and a $2,285,493 penalty, making $2,742,689 in restitution and $8,228,067 in penalties in total. The order permanently enjoins future violations of the commodities laws and imposes trading, solicitation and registration bans. The release says the court found customer funds were misappropriated and that the scheme operated like a Ponzi scheme. It mentions help from IRS Criminal Investigation but reports no criminal charge. The penalty figure recorded here is the sum over the three respondents. Checked on 2026-10-04.

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. 2017-02-14 CFTC release published
2. 2019-02-05 Court ordered restitution, civil monetary penalties, injunction and bans

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 release on the court order (7881-19)

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.