CFTC v. Chicago-based Phillip Galles (ponzi schemes, 2023)

Judgment entered

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In November 2023 the CFTC announced an Illinois federal court judgment against Phillip Galles and his Tyche entities for commodity pool fraud, requiring $5,327,173 in restitution and a $15,981,519 civil monetary penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$16m

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$16m

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 court found that Galles and the Tyche entities defrauded 65 people who lost $5,327,173, misappropriated pool money, lied to the National Futures Association about whether the funds were soliciting, and broke pool-operation rules. The release calls the pool a Ponzi scheme.

The headline, "over $20 million", is restitution plus the penalty. The record had entered $20 million as the penalty and named the defendant as "Chicago-based Phillip Galles".

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the order or release 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.

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. 2023-11-15 CFTC release published

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

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 20, 2026. submit a correction.