<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged a North Carolina man and his company after the agency said he swindled about 60 people out of $14 million in a bogus commodity pool that traded a range of assets, including cryptocurrencies.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">In a complaint filed Tuesday in the U.S.
District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, the CFTC accused Trevor Vernon and his company, Argent Capital Management LLC, of fraud.
According to the agency, they operated a commodity pool that traded options on equity index futures, equity index futures contracts and crypto.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The <a href="https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9264-26">CFTC alleges</a> that Vernon and his company lied, in part through quarterly financial updates and monthly performance recap emails, about him being a "successful trader," when instead he was racking up step losses with participants' money. </span><span class="s2">In total, Vernon lost at least $8.6 million trading futures, options and crypto, the agency said. </span></p>
