The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York against Dean S. Dellas and his investment advisory company, DSD Capital Management, LLC, alleging fraud and misappropriation in connection with commodity trading advisory activity. The CFTC seeks restitution, disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, permanent trading and registration bans, and a permanent injunction for alleged violations of the Commodity Exchange Act. The complaint alleges that from at least February 2021 through November 2023 the defendants made material misrepresentations and omissions and misappropriated more than USD 690,000 from at least two clients, a 61-year-old man and his 91-year-old mother, who had entrusted them to manage their entire life savings. It alleges the defendants executed tens of thousands of futures transactions in each client’s account without warning of inherent risks, generating more than USD 169,000 in trading losses and commissions for the first client and more than USD 196,000 for the second, while concealing the losses and representing the accounts were doing well. Despite representing that fees would equal 10 percent of profits, the complaint alleges the defendants charged excessive and unjustified fees and transferred client funds to themselves, misappropriating more than USD 235,000 from the first client and more than USD 459,000 from the second, including by allegedly concealing the substance of documents the clients were directed to sign and impersonating them in dealings with futures commission merchants. A parallel criminal case is also referenced, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York unsealing an indictment on May 6 charging Dellas with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft related to the same alleged scheme.

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