CFTC v. Wurl and Ludiera Capital (ponzi schemes, 2015)

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.

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 3, 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 2015 the CFTC charged Nick A. Wurl and Ludiera Capital LLC of Chicago with fraud and misappropriation in a commodity pool that took over $9 million from at least 46 investors, and described part of the conduct as akin to a Ponzi scheme.

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 complaint alleges that the defendants said they would only buy and sell physical commodities, instead calling the pool a shell, misappropriated at least $600,000 for credit card debt and vehicles, and paid about $1.8 million in redemptions using other participants' principal. The Justice Department separately charged Wurl with wire fraud on May 27, 2015.

The allegations are unproven and no bans or money had been ordered; the record showed a trading ban as imposed. It also carried "Illinois Resident" and "His Company" in the names.

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. 2015-06-24 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.