On May 30, TradingSchools.Org published a story titled: StockTwits: The Facebook Of Fraud.
In that story, we detailed how Stock Twits is a social media and investment platform that is essentially enabling and providing a venue for fraudulent trading products and services. Nearly every single month, a horror story appears in our inbox, related to StockTwits.
The stories are remarkably similar. That an unwitting investor found a money manager or supposed hedge fund product that promised huge profits with little risk.
Within a few months, the money manager disappears with the investment. The victim is left with only faked or fraudulently produced brokerage statements.
During just the month of May 2017, the FBI made three separate arrests, of three different “financial advisors” that ripped off investors for a combined $12,000,000. All three of the frauds originated from, and were frequent advertisers on the StockTwits platform.
It has been only 22 days since our last article. And yet another fraudulent investment advisor has been busted by the CFTC and the FBI.
Global FX Club
According to the CFTC, Global FX Club ripped off investors for about $400,000.
It appears that the scheme started with the following website. Which published a series of fraudulently produced trading results, that can be viewed here.
Simultaneously, several user profiles were created on StockTwits. These user profiles were used to stream out a near constant barrage of supposedly winning Forex trades. These can be viewed here:
The fraud was further enhanced and enabled directly by StockTwits as they sold advertisements that guaranteed a minimum of Stock Twits users would unwittingly be directed to Global FX Club.
Once the victim arrived at the Global FX Club website, and with the implied credibility of StockTwits, the client was then offered the opportunity to invest.
The owner of the company, Michael Wright would proclaim his Forex trading greatness, and offer his trading services as a managed service. Michael Wright would tempt the victim with a performance-based scheme. For every dollar earned, the supposed money manager would receive 15% of the monthly profits, only after a return of 100% had been achieved.
Fraudulent Account Statements
As the months progressed, Michael Wright would mail account statements to each victim. Every single month, he proclaimed amazing profits.
Sometime in the fall of 2016, Michael Wright simply disappeared. Customers began complaining to the CFTC and forwarded the supposedly authentic account statements to the CFTC and the FBI.
The CFTC examined the account statements and discovered that all of the statements were fraudulently produced.
Investigators were able to track down several Forex accounts controlled by Michael Wright. They discovered that during the time of the fraud, a total of $115,800 was deposited in several Forex trading accounts. Of this amount, Michael Wright lost approximately $114,300.
Missing Money
Investigators for the CFTC and the FBI began to dig even deeper. They discovered that Mr. Wright had been using the remainder of investor funds to support his “Forex Trading Lifestyle.”
Money was spent on cars, food, jewelry, topless bars, entertainment, and expensive clothing.
In total, investors believed that their investments had grown to about $5,000,000 in profits. In reality, investors were left with nothing. And supported the lifestyle of a con artist.
Thanks for reading.
Actually I did notice one more alarming thing about this ponzi scammer. In DoJ report it mentioend Wright is 30 y.o. so according to stocktwits he started doing his sham seven years ago in his early 20’s probably just as a new college grad which smells of another bad apple example of a Sykes wannabe. Like we had Alex Sobiel/Zeilaff and the “WillStockspicks” young shamsters. I recall this young guy probably the same age as Wright on bmt during the era of VVanceVirg and the cartoon pandabera which I’m sure you remmember RobB, haha. Well, this kid, “indextrader7” came on the scene and talked like he knew better than all the members on bmt spouting off his superior trading babble and “psychology” etc. Then he started his own “fund” and even hilariously rented an office in a building tower and showed off the pictures. All he was doing , you guessed it, taking trades on futures with Ninja. Well he got labeled a vendor then suddenly disappeared. Months later it was found out he had lost 15% or so of the fund and his co-partner friend had called the clients (probably local ) to leave the fund against his wishes because all he was doing was averaging down the losers as a typical out of control newb trading and making the losses worse. Well if you saw his sample charts it was just extreme scalping on a 4 tick chart(!), yet the fool talked like he knew what he was doing and ridiculous that compromised sites like bmtfioforum can often lead down to Ninja young vendor fraud from beachpooped daydreams. It was probably fortunate after all he didn’t get into worse trouble like the stock-twit Wright and other twenty something sham guys who think they can be another Sykes and end up on the wrong end of the ponzi law.
Many of these scammers start with fake BMT journals. Take Vince for example. He first had a journal where he did nothing but lose money, but then wam bam he created a new superstar journal model after Mack where he only circled winning trades. BM then even has him make webinars for BM showing his nonsense. Now here is the funny part, these are suppose to be your own personal journals for yourself, but he then goes on to make daily videos and he even then expands his journal and post his trades in both inside and outside the elite section. Now why would one be doing that with a personal journal. The reason is too get suckers to PM him asking for private lessons and so forth to start his sucker lists. BTW, he was a stock broker so gets suckers to give him money to invest also. Eventually, what a shocker, he starts a website doing the same thing and BM finally labels him a vendor, but the damage was already done. And the fools over there worshiped this con artist who of course never showed any proof he could trade profitable. People just accepted he could based on him circling all winning trades. That was the world we lived in before this blog. It must have been like what it was like to live in the dark ages at the end just as some started to point out maybe drilling into someones head does not remove the evil spirits.
You’re absolutely right RobB. VigVanceVirgurgle should have been labeled a vendor from his first appearance on bmt especially as a stockbroker. Now that I think more about it, the other shammy details you mentioned are coming back to me. yes, I recall his posts and journal were laid back initially, then he ramped up the ridiculous wins day after day week after week along with the pandabeara where they would score win after win on crude futures. Sometimes incredibly scoring almost the entire major moves of the day like a secure roller coaster. I remember one of them boasting after a 90% gain of much of CL’s move in a day that he wasn’t at his peak, lol. What utter faux showoff sham rubbish. They were just forumclubbers seeking attention while dangerously misinforming the vast readership about their ridiculous unrealistic dream “performances” , on simdogbucks no less. Yep, I completely hear you about the “circle” after “circle” ad nauseum of winner after winner. A win there, +20 ticks, a win there another +15, oops, still got out early somehow and bagged +7 ticks there, another +25 ticks,..session close time, yayy baggd +107 ticks on crude for the day (beat that! that they were shoving in our faces). lol. Even better than palm readers predicting the future of complete moves on crude day after day, swing after swing. So I totally get you and wonder ok, thee’s a cricle there, but what about that place that wasn’t circled, which could have been an entry of the Vig “slowww-hand” “method” and end up a loser. Nope, losers don’t exist. And I kept wondering is there anyone else seeing the potential losses that are never circled. What about the right-edge of the chart? real time? Yeah, he lamely did like a couple of screenshots of supposedly right-edge trading just token gesture. So I bet many had the same doubts and questions, but no, if you criticized or asked too much, bmt admin would “warn” or even ban you for causing friction on the forums. I think overall Vig was an egomaniac who kept posting his sham charts and recap videos over and over then again on youtube like there was no tomorrow and no other reason for living just to “prove” the naysayers wrong out of some psychotic need to do so. I remember, he even spectacularly failed on the first step of topstep and he had no choice to report the truth since it was already witnessed by topstep. You’d think his perfect immaculate slowhand method would beat the topstep combine no matter the strict restrictions designed to make most fail into a hamster wheel churn, because VigVurgle’s method always had winners, no? so it shouldn’t matter with the rigged topstep conditions since all his entries would win anyways. the insanity, lol. and insult to injury contributing to the misleading of the forum members into beachpooped dreams of unrealistic day trading. Funny thing, bmtadmin finally told VigVance to desist his journal, tellingly so after bmtadmin’s expatriat semi-retirement to beachpooped ecuadaroia. I guess, after all that time, they never made it to a vig deal like FT71 promoting stage5 brokerage services and irt because VanceVig wanted to do his own site instead. Anyways, what a multi-year waste of time and sham following yapping up the circled rubbish on that compromised forum.
I wonder if Wright wrote this “educational” article on his site about avoiding losing money and it was found out that he busted the accounts he attempted to trade with losing 99%! What a disgusting farce.
http://www.globalfxclub.com/forex-education/10-ways-to-avoid-losing-money-in-forex/
It reminds me of the SchoolofTrade when the investigation actually got a look at the old live trading accounts of the Dufresnes where they actually lost over 100k probably before quit losing by procuring their shamsite’s monthly churn. I bet 90% or more of all these trading room frauds, if the feds investigated all their previous live accounts, their trading records would be horribly averaged down , busted, and would look pathetic and worse than the waanabe journals on fioforum. The cftc and doj reports seem to mention Wright singularly where I wonder if he was the sole perp behind the stocktwit profile and sites. Maybe a couple of shill friends. what a hoot the globalfxsite describes themselves as some professional “group”. How fake can web design and stock photos make a “business” look these days. (just see the slicker looking Warrior Trading site these days. gone is the clunky fake “architect” bio and messy ad words splattered around. )
Not much else to add except in the DoJ article it mentioned the guy was arrested so good to hear he didn’t vanish for good leaving his clients with empty bags completely in the dust.
http://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founder-purported-investment-company-charged-commodities-fraud-and-wire-fraud
I wonder if Wright wrote this “educational” article on his site about avoiding losing money when it was found out that he busted the accounts he attempted to trade with losing 99%!
http://www.globalfxclub.com/forex-education/10-ways-to-avoid-losing-money-in-forex/
It reminds me of the SchoolofTrade when the investigation actually got a look at the old live trading accounts of the Dufresnes where they actually lost over 100k probably before quit losing by procuring their shamsite’s monthly churn. I bet 90% or more of all these trading room frauds, if the feds investigated all their previous live accounts, their trading records would be horribly averaged down , busted, and would look pathetic and worse than the waanabe journals on fioforum. The cftc and doj reports seem to mention Wright singularly where I wonder if he was the sole perp behind the stocktwit profile and sites. Maybe a couple of shill friends. what a hoot the globalfxsite describes themselves as some professional “group”. How fake can web design and stock photos make a “business” look these days. (just see the slicker looking Warrior Trading site these days. gone is the clunky fake “architect” bio and messy ad words splattered around. )
Not much else to add except in the DoJ article it mentioned the guy was arrested so good to hear he didn’t vanish for good leaving his clients with empty bags completely in the dust.
http://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founder-purported-investment-company-charged-commodities-fraud-and-wire-fraud
dtchurn, exactly why this fraud is going to get worse. New fraudsters growing up every day with a some knowledge on how to manipulate social media and there you go. You now have a successful hedge fund. That kid Jacob Whol tried it and got busted, but he still acts as if he is a hedge fund titan. Just absolutely crazy that someone worked so hard for their money only to lose it to a punk with an ego problem. How can some of these kids claim to be successful for 6 yeras or so and only be 19 at the time. The investors only had to do some investigative work into their background. You can’t make this shiat up.