Jennifer Arbittier Williams, the First Assistant US Attorney, made an announcement on Friday. This announcement is in regards to Micheal Salerno, who had been arrested and charged with six counts of mail fraud and twenty-three counts of wire fraud. All of these charges stand in connection with elaborate, numerous fraud schemes that Salerno had operated.
A Man Of Many Frauds
As the Indictment itself stipulated, Salerno had operated several businesses between September of 2016 and at least November of 2018. These companies include BDF Trading LP, Black Diamond Forex, Advanta FX, and Advanta Capital Markets Inc. All of these companies claimed to have been doing Forex trading as their business.
Salerno went about convincing victims to pay an advance fee, which he described as a means to be hired by Salerno’s company. This typically stands as an up-front payment, usually over $1000. Salerno convinced his victims that he would make a $10 million trading pool available to them, for these victims to trade within the Forex market, after they paid him. Further promises were that they would be taking a generous cut of any profits they make. Alas, none of these claims were true, in the end.
The Typical Lies And Motivations
As the Indictment stipulated, Salerno had claimed to manage a real estate empire. He claimed to have recently sold a portion of this empire for $10 million in order to fund his new venture in forex. Further claims stipulated that he is a very profitable forex trader. As is expected so far, none of these claims were true.
The man in question had declared bankruptcy twice already, and had been evicted numerous times from rental homes due to failure to pay the rent. Back in 2005, the man even pleaded guilty to federal tax charges, subsequently being sentenced to 21 months in prison. As one would imagine, Salerno had deemed it unnecessary to disclose any of this to the victims mentioned above before he took their money.
Predictably, Salerno had used the funds gathered from the advanced fees, an impressive $300,000, and used this money for his own benefit.
Refusing To Give Up Easily
The man’s entire currency-trading scheme came crashing to a halt, however, once the US Commodity And Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had sought, and obtained, an injunction against Salerno and his various businesses back in 2018. Not to be discouraged, Salerno simply started a second scheme, and operated a company called AccuOne Financial Inc between May of 2018 to at least December of 2019.
From this one scheme alone, Salerno managed to end several hundreds of thousands of dollars, with the company in question claiming to aid clients in getting rid of unwanted automobile leases. As one would imagine, Salerno only ripped the clients off.
For his many, many crimes, Salerno faces a maximum possible sentence of 580 years, as well as three years of supervised release. Further potential penalties include a fine of $7.25 million, as well as full restitution of what he had done.
