We pick up the story in the summer of 2007. Tradeco is still technically in business although Nettles has long since cut his official ties to the firm. Here are the highlights of the NFA's complaint:
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The website claimed that Tradeco's trading platform permitted customers to trade "from real time streaming quotes" with "greater ease in executing trades" on a platform that "has a proven track record of reliability and stability."
Tradeco, however, had not had a trading platform on which customers could trade since at least July 2006.
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Two words: BUCKET SHOP
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Tradeco's website further claimed that its platform provided "trading technology [that] is the result of over 5 years of development and today supports billion in monthly trade volume." The website also declared that "clients and partners from over 110 countries currently rely on our proven technology, execution, clearing services and administrative tools."
In addition to not having a trading platform, Tradeco only had approximately twenty customers from five different countries, none of which had actually traded through Tradeco.
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Bwahahahaha! Let that be a lesson to everyone. Just because someone throws up a website and makes grandiose statements doesn't mean they're legit.
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Through its website, Tradeco also claimed to be insured with "a fidelity 14 bond, which protects against loss resulting from fraudulent acts committed by an employee acting alone or in collusion with others."
When NFA inquired about the fidelity 14 bond, Tradeco was unable to provide any evidence that it had such a bond.
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Ah yes, the old "Fidelity 14 bond." I have seen firms toss this old lemon around in the forex industry to try and ease the concerns of customers worried about the safety of their funds. Whenever you see this old dog dragged out of the kennel that should sound the alarm bell in your head to put your money elsewhere as few serious brokers try to pawn that off on their customers.
Later in the complaint the NFA calls out Tradeco for not only failing to meet their capital requirements but for failing to even keep a general ledger. Guess that's why we never saw any reports on the CFTC website this year...
So who is to blame for this mess? The NFA tried to pin the blame on Nettles since he was "The director of operations for Tradeco and the firm's AML compliance officer. Accordingly, Nettles had supervisory responsibilities with regard to Tradeco's activities."
But Nettles strongly disagreed and in his response to the NFA's charges basically denied everything and said he had nothing to do with it. The NFA has not rendered a decision on his culpability, but they did find Tradeco guilty on all counts. Only problem is Tradeco no longer exists. No one ever replied to the NFA complaint which is probably still sitting in some over stuffed mailbox with all of Tradeco's other bills, flyers and court summonses. Talk about beating a dead horse...
So where is the running man today? Well last anyone heard he was involved in the "Finex Group." Traders at Forex Factory put the word out on Finex earlier in the year (
Swiss Law and Dukascopy.com/Finex.com - Page 2) and sure enough a few months later Swiss authorities swooped in to freeze all of Finex's accounts (
Finex - Beware). In a rather droll email Finex agents told their customers:
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Finex Group GmbH is currently under audit of the Swiss Federal Banking Commission. The reason for this audit is to determine if Finex Group GmbH is required to have a bank license to offer forex trading in Switzerland . So at this time, please do NOT send any funds until we get the results of the SFBC. Regarding withdraws requests, we are told by the lawyers appointed by the SFBC that we can’t process them until conclusion of this audit and we don’t have a timeframe when this will happen as of today. We are in process of setting up another Finex Group company in another country that will take over the Finex’ FX business in Switzerland incase their final decision is that Finex Group is required to have a bank license to operate forex in Switzerland which at this time seems to be what that conclusion will be. There is no reason to be alarmed and we will either continue in Switzerland or move to another country.
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No reason to be alarmed?! With Ryan Nettles on the scene traders should have EVERY REASON TO BE ALARMED. Of course they can always, "move to another country." And so the running man just keeps on running. Run Ryan! Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!