Precious Metals Enforcement Action Log
This log lists recent U.S. regulator releases about precious-metals fraud that we opened ourselves, newest first, plus a short list of older headlines we have not opened. Each item links to the agency's own page and says whether the source describes an allegation, a consent order, a default judgment or a final judgment. It is a news log, not a ranking or a list of every action.
This is the news log that sits beside our enforcement actions database. The database is a structured reference table. This page is a dated list of newer releases, so you can see what regulators have announced lately. It is part of our regulatory and tax updates and uses the same labels as our company research methodology.
Every item in the two main tables and the sections that follow them comes from a page we opened on the access date shown in the sources; the one exception is the short headline-only table near the end, which says so. Every item here was announced by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency that regulates commodity futures and has also brought fraud cases over precious-metals sales. We did not find or open releases from other agencies for this log; see the limits at the end.
How do you read the labels in this log?
| Label | What it means |
|---|---|
| Allegation | A government agency says in a complaint what it believes the defendants did. A court has not decided it. |
| Consent order | The parties agreed to the order. Whether anyone admitted or denied the claims depends on the document. We say so only when the source does. |
| Default judgment | A court enters judgment because a defendant did not respond or appear. It is a court order, but it did not follow a contested trial. |
| Final judgment or decision | A court decision ending the case, with the money, bans or injunctions it sets. |
Press releases are an agency's own summary. They are useful, but they are not the court order itself.
What are the most recent items?
| Date | Matter (as the source names it) | What the source says | Type of source statement | Primary source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sept. 30, 2026 | Brian Early, Alisha Ann Kingrey, the estate of Rene Larralde and Juan Pablo Valcarce; U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida | Default judgment against Early and Kingrey: restitution of $15,732,455 and a civil monetary penalty of $15,752,455, plus permanent injunctions and registration and trading bans. Consent orders against the Larralde estate (give up a residence and more than $2.7 million in other assets to a receiver) and Valcarce (permanent injunction and bans). The release says these resolve all remaining claims | Default judgment and consent orders | CFTC release 9305-26 |
| Dec. 9, 2025 | Robert L. Adams and SimTradePro Incorporated; U.S. District Court, District of Oregon | Consent order: restitution of $2,072,986, a permanent trading and registration ban, and a ban on further violations "as charged." The release says the defendants solicited funds to trade leveraged foreign currency and leveraged gold and silver contracts in their commodity pools, and that many of the customers were planning for retirement | Consent order | CFTC release 9148-25 |
| Nov. 20, 2025 | Safeguard Metals LLC and Jeffrey Ikahn (also called Jeffrey Santulan and Jeffrey Hill); U.S. District Court, Central District of California | Restitution of $25.6 million and a civil monetary penalty of $25.6 million, with payments in the parallel SEC case offset against these. Thirty state securities agencies were co-plaintiffs. The release says the court had earlier entered a consent order that found the defendants liable | Final judgment (announced Nov. 20, 2025) | CFTC release 9139-25 and our database entry |
| Sept. 15, 2025 | Robert Jeffrey Johnson, Kathleen Hook, Precious Commodities Inc., NCB Wholesale Co., Ross Baldwin and National Coin Broker, Inc.; U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York | Combined restitution of $6,923,919, joint and several, and a $11.5 million civil monetary penalty on the default-judgment defendants. The release describes a "Silver Lease Program" that it calls a fraudulent scheme running from about June 2014 to at least October 2019. It does not mention retirement accounts | Consent order (Baldwin, National Coin Broker) and default judgment (the others) | CFTC release 9124-25 |
| Oct. 25, 2024 (orders entered Oct. 15, 2024) | Regal Assets LLC, Tyler G. Gallagher and Leah Donoso; U.S. District Court, Central District of California | Default judgments: restitution of over $21.9 million, which the release says the defendants must pay jointly and severally, and civil monetary penalties of over $27.3 million, plus permanent bans on registering with the CFTC and trading in CFTC-regulated markets. The release says the CFTC and California's Department of Financial Protection and Innovation had alleged that the defendants misappropriated more than $21 million from more than 120 customers whose funds came mainly from tax-deferred retirement accounts | Default judgment | CFTC release 9001-24 and our database entry |
The CFTC's own press-release list shows release 9124-25 as Sept. 16, 2025, while the release page itself is dated Sept. 15, 2025. We use the date on the release page.
Newest first. As of Nov. 3, 2026, the CFTC's press-release list filtered for "precious metals" showed the Sept. 30, 2026 release above as its most recent entry, so we found no newer item to add. The filter is a keyword search and is not a complete list of CFTC actions.
What else should you know about each item?
The September 2026 Fundsz order
The case began in August 2023, when the CFTC's release 8766-23 said, as allegations, that the defendants solicited people to trade cryptocurrencies and precious metals and claimed a "proprietary algorithm," while "Fundsz does not trade customer funds at all." Those were allegations at filing. In September 2026 the CFTC reported orders that resolve the case. The release says the court found that Early and Kingrey made material misrepresentations. Because that part is a default judgment, the release does not indicate that they contested it. The release mentions precious metals in its title, but the part of it we read does not say whether gold or silver was bought, how it was held, or whether retirement accounts were involved. We therefore do not describe this as a gold IRA case.
The December 2025 SimTradePro order
The release describes court findings that the defendants collected more than $2.3 million from at least 100 customers, misstated their fees and hid trading losses. This was a leveraged-contracts case, not a case about buying physical coins or bars. We include it because the contracts included gold and silver and, according to the release, many customers were planning for retirement.
The Safeguard Metals judgment
According to the release, the company lured customers with false claims about the risk of their traditional retirement investments and then sold silver coins and other precious metals at inflated prices by misrepresenting markups, taking in about $68 million from more than 450 customers. The detailed history, including the parallel SEC case, is in the enforcement database.
The Silver Lease Program orders
The CFTC reported that the court resolved a July 2021 action. The release also says Johnson pleaded guilty to wire fraud, Hook to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and Baldwin to several counts, including false statements to CFTC officials. Those pleas were in a separate criminal case, and they are not part of the civil orders listed above.
The October 2024 Regal Assets default judgments
The release says the court entered "orders of default judgment" on Oct. 15, 2024, in a case the CFTC and California's Department of Financial Protection and Innovation filed jointly on Sept. 27, 2023. A default judgment is entered when a defendant does not respond or appear, so it is a court order but not the result of a contested trial. The release describes the underlying allegations: that customers moved money, mainly from tax-deferred retirement accounts, to buy precious metals through self-directed IRAs, and that the defendants used forged documents to conceal the misappropriation. We did not open the orders for this log and rely on the CFTC's summary. Our enforcement database entry for this case has more detail from the court documents.
Is anything else in the CFTC's recent releases about precious metals?
One item is about a different kind of case. On Jan. 16, 2026, the CFTC's release 9168-26 reported consent orders against two former bank employees, Gregg Smith and Michael Nowak, over "spoofing in the precious metals futures markets." That conduct concerns trading on futures exchanges, not sales to retail buyers or IRAs, so we list it here only so you can see the full picture and do not treat it as a dealer case.
A different kind of release is a warning rather than a case. On March 20, 2024, the CFTC's release 8881-24 announced a joint effort by the CFTC's Office of Customer Education and Outreach, FINRA and NASAA to warn retirees about precious-metals fraud. The release says fraudulent dealers sell overpriced gold and silver as "safe investments" and allegedly charge large markups, commissions and fees, and that people who hold a self-directed IRA face added risk because custodians may offer limited protection and typically do not investigate the assets or promoters. It points to a CFTC and FINRA investor bulletin, "10 Things to Ask Before Buying Physical Gold, Silver, or Other Metals," and a flier, "Lies Versus Facts: The Truth Behind Gold and Silver IRA Scams." Our guides to warning signs and overpriced coins cover the same ground in plain English.
Which older precious-metals releases are on the CFTC's list?
These headlines appear in the same CFTC list (dates and release numbers as shown there). We have not opened these releases for this log, so we do not summarize them or say what type of order each describes. Where our enforcement database covers a case, it has the details.
| Date shown in list | Release | Headline (CFTC's wording) |
|---|---|---|
| 04/25/2024 | 8898-24 | Federal Court Orders California-Based Precious Metals Company, CEO, Senior Salesperson to Pay Over $56 Million for Fraud in Connection with Precious Metals Sales |
| 10/25/2023 | 8812-23 | CFTC and State Regulators Enter Consent Order with California Precious Metals Dealer in $68 Million Fraud Targeting the Elderly |
| 09/28/2023 | 8791-23 | The CFTC and California Department of Financial Protection & Innovation Charge Los Angeles Area Precious Metals Dealer in $21 Million Fraudulent Scheme |
| 09/26/2023 | 8784-23 | CFTC Charges Dallas and Los Angeles Area Precious Metals Dealers in Ongoing Fraud Scheme Garnering Over $7 Million from Retirement Accounts |
| 07/03/2023 | 8741-23 | Federal Court Orders Two Delaware Companies to Pay Nearly $146 Million for Misappropriation and Fraud Related to a Precious Metals Scheme |
| 05/15/2023 | 8704-23 | The CFTC and State Regulators in California and Hawaii Charge Los Angeles Area Precious Metals Dealer in Ongoing $61 Million Fraud Targeting the Elderly |
| 04/25/2023 | 8694-23 | CFTC Charges Precious Metals Dealers and Their Owner in Multimillion Dollar Fraud Targeting the Elderly |
| 12/21/2022 | 8643-22 | Federal Court Orders California Precious Metals Firm and Its Owners to Pay $38 Million for Commodity Fraud and Registration Violations |
| 10/05/2022 | 8606-22 | CFTC Charges Delaware Precious Metals Dealer, Depository, and Their Owner with Ongoing Fraud |
Headlines for charges are allegations at the time they were issued, not findings.
What does this log not cover?
- Only CFTC releases. We searched the CFTC's press-release list for "precious metals" (last re-checked Nov. 3, 2026) and opened the releases summarized above, apart from the older headline-only table. We did not find or open comparable 2026 releases from the SEC, the Federal Trade Commission, state securities regulators or state attorneys general, so none appear here. That is a limit of our search, not a statement that none exist.
- Not every CFTC action. The search results page we used is a keyword search. Releases that never use the words may be missing.
- Court documents. We read the CFTC's summaries for these items. We did not open the underlying orders, and we did not look for later payment or collection activity.
- No findings about companies beyond the source. A name appears here only because it is named in the release.
Absence from this log does not mean a company has no record. See our guide on how to verify a dealer and, if you think you have been defrauded, how to report gold IRA fraud.
How often is this log updated?
We add items when we can open the agency's own release. Under our update policy, enforcement information is reviewed every three months and whenever regulators announce new actions. Report a problem through our corrections page. This page is general information, not legal or financial advice.
Sources
- CFTC Secures Court Order Directing Louisiana Man and Arkansas Woman to Pay Over $31 Million for Digital Assets, Precious Metals Fraud (Release 9305-26), Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Accessed Invalid Date.
- CFTC Charges Residents of Florida, Louisiana, and Arkansas in Ongoing Cryptocurrency and Precious Metals Fraud (Release 8766-23), Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Accessed Invalid Date.
- CFTC Enforcement Updates (Release 9168-26), Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Accessed Invalid Date.
- CFTC Obtains Over $2M Restitution for Victims of Precious Metals, Foreign Currency Pool Fraud (Release 9148-25), Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Accessed Invalid Date.
- CFTC, 30 State Regulators Obtain Over $51 Million in Sanctions, Restitution for Victims in California Precious Metals Fraud (Release 9139-25), Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Accessed Invalid Date.
- CFTC Obtains $6.9M Restitution Order Against Three Individuals, Three Florida Firms in Metals Fraud Case (Release 9124-25), Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Accessed Invalid Date.
- Press Releases (search results for "precious metals"), Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Accessed Invalid Date.
- Federal Court Orders Precious Metals Dealer, its CEO and President to Pay $49M for Fraudulent Misappropriation Scheme (Release 9001-24), Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Accessed Invalid Date.
- Joint Effort Launches to Warn Retirees about Precious Metals Fraud and Gives Tips on Protecting Themselves (Release 8881-24), Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Accessed Invalid Date.
This guide is general education, not personalized financial, tax or legal advice. See our financial disclaimer, editorial policy and advertising disclosure.