Florida man sentenced in $30 million foreign exchange fraud scheme

FLORIDA –– A Florida man has been charged for his role in perpetrating a foreign exchange trading scheme to steal $30 million from their investor victims, the U.S. Department of Justice has announced.

Michael Dion, 50, of Orlando, Florida, was sentenced to four years and seven months in prison on March 2. Patrick Gallagher, 45, of Middleborough, Massachusetts, was sentenced to five years in prison on Feb. 21 for his role in the scheme, the DOJ said.

According to court documents, Gallagher and Dion devised a scheme in which they would solicit victims to invest in their foreign exchange company, Global Forex Management, by promising them large returns based on previous trading results that they had fabricated. They told the victims that their funds would be traded using an online platform provided by a co-conspirator’s company, IB Capital.

Instead, according to the DOJ, Gallagher, and Dion were working with other co-conspirators in the Netherlands to steal the victim investors’ money. In May 2012, Gallagher and Dion reportedly executed their scheme by intentionally creating losing trades for the investors and effectively stole approximately $30 million from their victims, the DOJ said.

After fabricating the massive trading loss, the DOJ said Gallagher and Dion routed the stolen money through shell companies they had set up all over the world.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Inspector in Charge Eric Shen of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s (USPIS) Criminal Investigations Group made the announcement.

The USPIS investigated the case.

Trial Attorneys Vasanth Sridharan, Tian Huang, and Brittain Shaw of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuted the case.