The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken legal action against a fraudulent binary options scheme that has resulted in losses of more than USD50 million. The regulator has filed a complaint against the people behind Porter Finance and Dalton Finance. Individuals have participated in a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud retail investors in the United States through an unregistered sale of security-based binary options between 2014 and 2017.
The companies that benefited from the losses of the investors operated through a combination of websites and call centers. Although they deliberately targeted US investors, none of the companies were registered with the SEC as a broker or dealer.