CFTC v. New Jersey-Based Entities and Individuals (2021)

Status unknown

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In December 2021 the CFTC charged a British Virgin Islands forex dealer, WorldWideMarkets, its New Jersey operator TAB Networks, Thomas Plaut and Arthur Dembro with defrauding retail customers from 2012 to 2018, misappropriating at least $4.7 million of customer money, and evading registration and capital rules.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	CFTC
Release number	8477-21
Date filed	2021-12-28
Court	U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey
Status	unknown
Criminal parallel	No
Defendants	WorldWideMarkets, Ltd. (entity) ; TAB Networks, Inc. (entity) ; Thomas Plaut (individual) ; Arthur Dembro (individual)
Techniques

What was ordered

Civil penalty: —
Disgorgement: —
Prejudgment interest: —
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 complaint alleges that the companies acted as counterparty to at least 14,000 retail customers, did not hold required capital or segregated funds, falsely told customers their money was held safely, and used customer assets for operating costs, salaries and cash distributions to Plaut. Dembro, the chief financial officer, is alleged to have aided and abetted.

The only use of "Ponzi" is a quotation from the CFTC's acting enforcement director saying a firm that avoided capital requirements would become insolvent after operating in a Ponzi-like manner; the release's account of the complaint does not allege payments to earlier customers from later ones. The record had tagged it on that quotation.

No technique tag is applied; this taxonomy has no slug for retail forex dealer misappropriation.

Timeline

2021-12-28 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.

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.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.