Wilson facing CFTC civil action

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By Stan Welch – Former Anderson County Councilman Ron Wilson’s woes continue as yet another federal agency filed a civil action against him in relation to his sales of silver securities. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed an enforcement action against Wilson and his business, Atlantic Bullion and Coin, focusing on Wilson’s actions during the period between Aug of 2011 and February of this year.

According to the complaint, Wilson or his agents sold more than eleven million dollars worth of silver contracts during that time, but failed to purchase the actual silver as promised.

“Instead the defendants allegedly misappropriated all of the investors funds, and to conceal their fraud, issued phony account statements to investors” reads the complaint filed last week in federal court.

State and federal authorities took action in March to close Atlantic Bullion and Coin, a company owned and operated by Wilson. Soon after, Secret Service and Treasury agents executed a federal search warrant on the offices of AB&C, as well as the adjacent offices of Live Oak Farms, a business owned by Wilson’s daughter, Alison Schaum.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson filed a complaint in the Fifth Judicial Circuit Court alleging that Wilson’s bullion and coin brokerage business was in fact a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme.

In the complaint, Attorney General Wilson alleged that Atlantic Bullion & Coin (AB&C) had represented to investors that the silver purchased on their behalf actually physically existed, even though it did not in fact.

The complaint also claimed that neither Wilson, nor any of his sales representatives, are licensed to sell securities in South Carolina, or any of the other approximately 25 states in which the securities have been sold.

Shortly after that, federal authorities charged Wilson with mail fraud and assumed effective control of the investigation. Wilson is cooperating with the investigation, according to his attorney.