CFTC v. Carl David Wright (ponzi schemes, 2015)

Settled

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In July 2015 the CFTC announced a supplemental order in the Western District of North Carolina imposing a $1 million civil penalty on Carl David Wright, whom a 2013 consent order had found liable for fraud in a commodity pool Ponzi scheme.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$1m

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$1m

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 2013 consent order found he took at least $1 million from about 16 customers, misappropriated most of it and paid so-called profits, and banned him from trading and registration. In a parallel criminal case he was sentenced in 2014 to four years in prison and ordered to pay $817,975 in restitution. This is the same matter as the June 2013 Wright complaint record.

The record carried the word "Defendant" in his name.

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.

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. 2015-07-10 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

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.

Related actions

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.