Michael Salerno, Wire and Mail Fraud, Pennsylvania 2023

PHILADELPHIA - Michael Salerno, a 51-year-old man from Mount Laurel, New Jersey, has been arrested and charged with 29 counts of fraud in connection with two business schemes.

According to an indictment, Salerno operated a series of businesses, including Black Diamond Forex, L.P., BDF Trading, L.P., Advanta Capital Markets, Inc., and Advanta FX, each of which purported to be in the business of trading foreign currencies.

Between September 2016 and at least November 2018, the defendant induced victims to pay advance fees of typically more than $1,000 in order to be hired by Salerno's company. He told the victims that, upon being hired, he would make available to them a pool of $10 million which they could trade on the foreign currency market, and take a generous cut of any profits.

However, these representations were completely false. Salerno claimed to have managed a real estate empire, a portion of which he claimed to have recently sold for $10 million to fund the currency-trading venture. He also claimed that he had been a profitable currency trader, but none of this was true.

In fact, Salerno declared bankruptcy twice, most recently in 2015, and had been evicted multiple times from rental homes for failure to pay rent. In 2005, he pleaded guilty to federal tax charges and was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

Salerno allegedly collected more than $300,000 in advance fees and used the money for his own benefit. The defendant's currency-trading scheme came to a halt when the U.S. Attorney's Office opened a criminal investigation and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sought and obtained an injunction against Salerno and his businesses in 2018.

However, Salerno allegedly turned immediately to a second scheme. Between May 2018 and at least December 2019, Salerno operated a company called AccuOne Financial, Inc. AccuOne purported to be in the business of assisting clients in ridding themselves of unwanted automobile leases.

According to the indictment, Salerno took the unwanted vehicles from the clients, made few - if any - of the required lease payments, and then gave the vehicles to other clients who could not obtain their own leases, in exchange for substantial monthly fees.

When Salerno's foreign currency trading scheme came crashing down around him, he very quickly moved on to an alternative way of swindling people out of their money with car leases and loans, said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Williams.

If convicted, the defendant faces a maximum possible sentence of 580 years in prison.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/mount-laurel-nj-man-arrested-and-charged-almost-30-counts-fraud-connection-two-business