CFTC v. Varlesi (ponzi schemes, 2013)

Settled

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In June 2013 the CFTC announced a consent order from the Northern District of Illinois requiring Christopher Varlesi, trading as Gold Coast Futures and Forex, to pay more than $638,000 in restitution and a $700,000 civil penalty over a Ponzi scheme that took about $1.7 million from at least 20 people.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$700k

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$700k

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 order, entered June 12, 2013, finds that Varlesi used no more than $220,000 of the $1.7 million to trade, spent investor money on personal and business costs, and used about $1.34 million to pay participants purported profits. It bans him from trading and registration. The headline figure of over $1.3 million is restitution plus the penalty; the penalty is $700,000.

The record previously showed the defendant with the word "Defendant" in his name and the status as a judgment, although the order was entered by consent.

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. 2013-06-25 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.