CFTC v. Tyche Asset Management, LLC and Phillip Galles (ponzi schemes, 2023)

Judgment entered

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In May 2023 the CFTC charged Tyche Asset Management and Phillip Galles over a commodity pool Ponzi scheme. After the defendants defaulted, the Northern District of Illinois entered an order of final judgment dated November 8, 2023 requiring $5,327,173 of restitution and a $15,981,519 penalty and permanently barring Galles and the Tyche entities from CFTC-regulated markets.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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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 Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced this matter on May 11, 2023 as release 8700-23. The complaint alleges that Galles and Tyche, with eight other Galles-controlled entities, took in more than $6 million from over 50 people in a Ponzi scheme, placed almost no trades, and lied to the National Futures Association. The CFTC sought restitution, disgorgement and penalties.

This library tags the matter as a Ponzi scheme because the document describes returns to earlier investors paid from later investors' money, as alleged or found. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

Outcome: the court's order of final judgment, filed November 8, 2023 and announced by the CFTC on November 15, 2023, follows a motion for entry of default against the defendants and resolves the May 2023 action. It finds Galles falsely claimed to manage billions of dollars at Tyche and 200 percent annual returns, misappropriated participants' money in a Ponzi scheme, and lied to the National Futures Association; 65 people lost $5,327,173. It orders Galles and the Tyche entities to pay $5,327,173 in restitution and a $15,981,519 penalty, and permanently enjoins them and bars them from trading on CFTC-regulated markets. The CFTC cautions that restitution orders do not always lead to recovery. The release does not mention a criminal case.

Money note: the dollar amounts in this record's text describe the November 2023 final judgment; to avoid counting the same amounts twice, the money fields are left empty here and the figures are held on the record for the final judgment release 8823-23 (cftc-chicago-based-phillip-galles-ponzi-schemes-2023).

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. 2023-05-11 CFTC release published
2. 2023-11-08 Order of final judgment (N.D. Ill.): restitution $5,327,173, penalty $15,981,519, permanent injunction and trading 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 order or complaint
• CFTC press release on final judgment
• Order of final judgment against Phillip Galles and the Tyche entities

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.