SEC Nails Boston Forex Company

BOSTON (CN) - Two men who run Boston Trading and Research took $40 million from customers in a foreign-exchange fraud, the SEC says. It sued the company and Craig Karlis, 50, of Hopkinton, and Ahmet Devrim Akyil, 38, formerly of Hingham, now of Turkey.

Akyil was one of the company's three owners and its president and head trader; Karlis was its managing director and an owner until Akyil bought him out, the SEC says.

The men told their customers, falsely, that "we do not profit unless you do," while they took money for their personal use and spent it on other businesses, the SEC says.

"The bait was the promise by Akyil and Karlis to limit investor risk, and the switch was the theft and unauthorized trading that cost investors 90 percent of the invested funds," the SEC said in a statement announcing its federal lawsuit.

"Akyil and Karlis secretly enriched themselves while many of the defrauded investors lost their retirement savings," the SEC added.

Their company collapsed in September 2008 and the men paid off their investors about 10 percent of the money they owed them, the SEC says. It seeks injunctions, disgorgement and fines.

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