Three Las Vegas firms charged with fraud in precious metals transactions
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Monday field an injunctive enforcement action against three Las Vegas firms and their principal, who lives in California.
The CFTC complaint filed in District Court in Las Vegas charged the three companies and Bharat Adatia, of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., took in more than $2.4 million from customers between July 2011 and February.
Authorities claim they took the money while fraudulently marketing illegal, off-shore trading of precious medals on a leveraged, margined or financed basis. The complaint alleges they “falsely claimed to sell gold, silver, platinum and palladium to retail customers in retail commodity transactions.”
The three Las Vegas companies cited in the complaint were Lions Wealth Holdings Inc., and Lions Wealth Services Inc., both doing business as Lions Wealth Capital, and 20/20 Precious Metals Inc.
Adatia was unavailable for comment Monday.
Contact reporter Chris Sieroty at csieroty@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @sierotyfeatures on Twitter.
