Pat Kiley, host of syndicated “Follow the Money,” and his partner Trevor Cook have been sued by the SEC, which claims they stole $43 million of the $190 million they raised in a foreign currency Ponzi scam, the SEC said Tuesday.
They, and a slew of “shell companies owned or controlled by either Cook or Kiley,” lost another $48 million in forex trading, and Cook gambled away nearly $5 million of it, the SEC says.
In its complaint in Minneapolis Federal Court, Courthouse News says the SEC specifically filed that the two men misappropriated $42.8 million from more than 1,000 victims, including $18 million to buy “ownership interests in two trading firms,” $12.8 million they sent to Panama “to purportedly finance the construction of a casino,” $2.8 million Cook used to buy a mansion in Minneapolis, and “$4.8 million that Cook lost through gambling.”
They paid out another $51 million in Ponzi payments, the SEC said. Cook and Kiley sold unregistered investments through their shell companies, promising to keep each investor’s account separate, and promising 10 percent to 12 percent annual returns.
The SEC also sued the men’s unregistered companies, including UBS Diversified Growth LLC, Universal Brokerage FX Management LLC, Oxford Global Advisors LLC, Oxford Global Partners LLC, and others.
The court, meanwhile, froze the accounts of these relief defendants: Basel Group LLC, Crown Forex LLC, Market Shot LLC, PFG Coin and Bullion, Oxford FX Growth L.P., Oxford Global FX LLC, Oxford Global Managed Futures Fund L.P, UBS Diversified FX Advisors LLC, UBS Diversified FX Growth L.P., and UBS Diversified FX Management LLC.
