CFTC v. Haena Park and Phaetra Capital (ponzi schemes, 2016)

Judgment entered

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 4, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In June 2016 the CFTC charged Haena Park, her Phaetra Capital and Argenta companies, and Yul Kaseman over a commodity pool that took about $23 million. The CFTC reports that a Manhattan federal court entered a consent order against the pool defendants in February 2018, a consent order against Kaseman in April 2018, and a final opinion and order on December 3, 2018 requiring $22.9 million in restitution and a $100,000 penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$175k

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$175k

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 complaint alleges two fraudulent schemes since at least January 2010: the pool, and a separate misappropriation. It alleges Park paid some participants with other participants' money and used pool money for credit card bills and cash withdrawals.

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.

CFTC release 7858-18 reports that on December 3, 2018 Judge Valerie Caproni of the Southern District of New York entered an opinion and order requiring Park's pool companies to pay $22,917,551 in restitution and, jointly and severally, a $100,000 civil monetary penalty, supplementing a consent order of February 7, 2018 whose findings the release summarises. The release says this ruling resolves the CFTC's litigation against the defendants. A separate consent order of April 23, 2018 found that co-defendant Yul Kaseman made false statements to the National Futures Association and imposed a $75,000 penalty and a five-year trading and registration ban. The penalty field adds the $100,000 and $75,000 figures; restitution is not a field on this site. The release as read does not state a separate monetary penalty or ban for Park personally. The findings come from consent orders and a court ruling reported by the regulator, and this page has not read the orders themselves. Checked on 2026-10-04.

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. 2016-06-03 CFTC release published
2. 2018-12-03 Opinion and order resolves CFTC litigation: $22,917,551 restitution, $100,000 penalty (CFTC 7858-18)

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 release 7858-18 (final order)

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.