HOUSTON, TX – Marcus Todd Brisco of Hawaii has been slapped with a hefty penalty and ordered to make restitution to victims of a fraudulent commodity pool scheme, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced Wednesday. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas entered a consent order against Brisco, resolving a case dating back to January 2023.
Brisco will pay a $350,000 civil monetary penalty and $1.65 million in restitution for soliciting and misappropriating funds from investors in two separate commodity pools. He is also permanently banned from trading commodities and registering with the CFTC, and is barred from future violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and related regulations.
According to the CFTC complaint, Brisco operated Yas Castellum LLC (Yas 1) from October 2020 to May 2022, fraudulently soliciting over $470,700 from at least 43 investors. Instead of using the funds for trading as promised, Brisco diverted them to accounts controlled by co-defendant Tin Tran and a third-party entity. After the National Futures Association (NFA) raised concerns about a lack of oversight, Brisco briefly repaid investors in Yas 1, claiming he was leaving the financial services industry.
However, just one month later, Brisco launched a second commodity pool, Yas Castellum Financial LLC (Yas 2), without registering it with the CFTC. He fraudulently solicited over $1.9 million from at least 66 investors for Yas 2. Again, Brisco misappropriated the funds, paying himself fictitious trading profits and directing money to Tran’s bank account. He failed to repay over $1.6 million to Yas 2 investors.
The CFTC acknowledged the assistance of the National Futures Association in the investigation. This consent order brings the case, which initially involved eight defendants, to a close with judgments or consent orders secured against all parties involved. The CFTC urges investors to verify registration through NFA BASIC before investing and to report suspicious activity.
Source: CFTC.gov
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