CFTC v. Gaylen Rust (ponzi schemes, 2018)

Alleged — pending

These are allegations. CFTC has filed an action; nothing in it has been proven, and the respondents have not been found liable. Everything described on this page is what the regulator alleges, not what a court has found. See our editorial policy.

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In December 2018 the CFTC and the State of Utah amended their complaint to charge Denise and Joshua Rust with taking part in the Salt Lake City silver-pool Ponzi scheme run by Gaylen Rust and Rust Rare Coin, which they now put at at least $200 million from more than 430 investors.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

—

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 CFTC announced the amended complaint on December 17, 2018 (release 7856-18); the case is in the District of Utah. Denise and Joshua Rust, earlier named only as relief defendants, are alleged to have signed checks to investors knowing they were Ponzi payments from other investors' money and to have moved investor funds to relief defendants. A court had frozen assets and appointed a receiver. No penalty or ban had been imposed.

The record named only Gaylen Rust and carried a trading ban that had not been imposed; the four defendants are now named and the ban entry is cleared.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes it as a scheme paying earlier investors with later investors' 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. 2018-12-17 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. If this matter has since resolved, been withdrawn or been dismissed, we want to know: submit a correction.