Page 19 - 期货和衍生品行业监管动态（2023年8月刊）

期货和衍生品行业监管动态

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today announced U.S. Magistrate

Judge William Matthewman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of

Florida entered consent orders resolving charges against defendant Bluprint LLC and

relief defendant Kalpana Patel.

The Bluprint order finds that it violated the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and

CFTC regulations prohibiting fraud, requiring registration of commodity pool operators

and associated persons, and requiring certain commodity pool disclosures and reporting.

The Kalpana Patel order finds she received ill-gotten gains obtained by Bluprint and its

owner, Rajiv Patel, who is now deceased.

The orders require Bluprint to pay $8,863,753.77 in restitution to victims of the

fraud and Kalpana Patel to pay $2,334,467.25 in disgorgement. The orders resolve the

CFTC’s action, initially filed January 18, 2022, with an amended complaint filed

November 3, 2022. [See CFTC Press Release No. 8487-22]

Case Background

The orders find Bluprint and its owner Rajiv Patel collected approximately $11.8

million from approximately 16 pool participants to trade, among other things,

commodity futures and options. They misappropriated pool participants’ funds and

used the funds to pay personal expenses to support Rajiv and Kalpana Patel’s lavish

lifestyle, including mortgages on two Palm Beach County, Florida homes, multiple

vehicle loans, personal loans totaling over $271,000, and credit cards totaling over

$407,000. In furtherance of their scheme, the Bluprint order also finds Bluprint and

Rajiv Patel distributed over $2.9 million to some pool participants in the manner of

Ponzi payments.

In addition, according to the orders, Bluprint and Rajiv Patel traded commodity

futures and options in personal trading accounts held individually or with Kalpana Patel,

rather than in a pool account as required. The trading resulted in significant losses, and,

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