CFTC v. Rudy Avila and six companies (fraudulent solicitation schemes, 2021)

Judgment entered

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In September 2021 the CFTC sued Rudy Avila and six U.S. and Costa Rican companies over two alleged fraudulent schemes. On August 8, 2024 a Texas federal court entered judgment on default, finding commodity and forex fraud and ordering restitution, penalties and injunctions; Avila separately pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced to 210 months.

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 CFTC announced the complaint on September 14, 2021 (release 8424-21) in the Northern District of Texas. The complaint alleged that from at least 2017 to spring 2020 the defendants solicited customers with false claims about trading and misappropriated funds. This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes.

Outcome: CFTC release 8978-24 (September 25, 2024) says Judge Samuel Lindsay granted the CFTC's motions for default, entered a memorandum order on August 1, 2024, a clarification order on August 7 and a judgment on August 8, 2024, finding futures, options and forex fraud, plus commodity trading advisor fraud by two entities, and describing two multi-year Ponzi schemes. Restitution of $3,626,751.90 (first scheme) and $1,814,720.41 (second scheme) was ordered, with joint and several liability among stated defendants. The release lists civil monetary penalties of $1,525,831.05 for Avila, $429,028 each for several companies and $858,056 each for two others, but names Trading Ventures Group in both groups and gives a headline total (over $9.5 million) that differs from its body (over $10.5 million), so no penalty total is recorded here. The release says Avila pleaded guilty to wire fraud on June 3, 2021 and was sentenced to 210 months in prison. The orders themselves were not opened.

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. 2021-09-14 CFTC release published
2. 2024-08-08 Judgment entered on default (CFTC release 8978-24, Sept. 25, 2024)

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 order or complaint
• CFTC release 8978-24 (judgment)

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.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.