Securities Regulation Daily Wrap Up, ENFORCEMENT—M.D. Fla.: Florida resident to pay over $1.3M in restitution, penalties for commodity pool fraud, (Apr 14, 2026)
Organizations Mentioned:Aureus Revenue Group LLC
By Suzanne Cosgrove
Emir Jesus Matos Camargo was alleged to have made numerous misrepresentations to pool participants; he also misappropriated pool participant funds.
The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida has entered a consent order against Emir Jesus Matos Camargo for futures fraud, fraud as an associated person of a commodity pool operator, and related regulatory violations (CFTC v. Aureus Revenue Group LLC, No. 6:24-cv-01603-PGB-NWH (M.D. Fla. Apr. 6, 2026)).
The order also imposes liability against Matos as a controlling person of the defaulted defendant Aureus Revenue Group LLC in connection with Aureus’s related violations. Matos co-founded Aureus in 2018 and is its manager director and CEO. He has never been registered with the Commission.
The consent order resolves all claims against Matos in the CFTC’s enforcement action filed September 4, 2024. That enforcement action against Aureus remains pending.
Restitution and penalties. As detailed in the order, Matos’ misrepresentations included sending “prospective pool participants a fictitious license purporting to show that the CFTC licensed Aureus as an investment fund. This fictitious license contained a counterfeit CFTC seal, a forged signature of a former CFTC Commissioner, and a fictitious license number.”
The court ordered Matos to pay $666,038.67 in restitution, jointly and severally with any final restitution judgment against the defaulted defendant Aureus.
The court also ordered civil monetary penalties of $666,038.67 against Matos, jointly and severally with any civil monetary penalty final judgment against Aureus. The court permanently enjoined Matos from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations, as charged, and imposed permanent trading and registration bans.
Case details. According to the filing, from at least September 10, 2019, through at least November 11, 2022, Matos, individually and as an agent and principal of Aureus, operated a fraudulent scheme in which Aureus solicited, accepted, and received funds for a pooled “Investment Fund” that traded commodity futures contracts referencing the S&P 500 Index (the Aureus Pool).
Matos, as an agent and principal of Aureus, knowingly or recklessly made fraudulent and material misrepresentations and omissions about the legitimacy, profitability, and risk of the Aureus Pool to individuals in soliciting contributions to the pool. Many of the individuals Matos solicited were immigrants to the U. S. from Spanish-speaking countries. Through these solicitations, the defendants persuaded at least 32 individuals and entities to transfer $1,538,802.56 to them for participation in the Aureus Pool.
Little trading done. The defendants engaged in limited and unprofitable futures trading. Instead, they misappropriated most of the money they received from the pool participants. Some of the funds, $872,763.89, were misappropriated for Aureus’s benefit to pay certain pool participants guaranteed monthly returns from funds deposited by other pool participants in a Ponzi scheme. Other misappropriated funds totaling $487,644.41 were used by the defendants to pay Matos’s rent, living and travel expenses, personal securities trading and personal taxes.
In or around summer 2022, the defendants stopped making monthly payments to pool participants. Around the same time, they attempted to conceal their fraudulent scheme, claiming that the Aureus trading account was frozen in an audit by Firm A, a Commission-registered futures commission merchant (FCM).
Later that same year, the defendants showed a pool participant’s representative false account information that indicated the Aureus Pool had a balance of approximately $3 million in a futures trading account. In reality, from September 2022 through at least February 2024, the Aureus Pool never had more than about $10,000 in any futures trading account.
The case is No. 6:24-cv-01603-PGB-NWH.
Judge: Byron, P.
Attorneys: Alan Thomas Simpson for the CFTC. Emir Jesus Matos Camargo, pro se.
Companies: Aureus Revenue Group LLC
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