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Green Tree Capital – Don't Gamble on This Scam
A lot of investors don't have time to manage their own money. That's why some of them hire professional account managers to trade forex for them. The biggest risks with an account manager is that he might treat trading as gambling or that he might steal your money. It looks like Lyndon Lydell Parrilla of Green Tree Capital Investments did both.
The complaints have been coming in to the FPA since January. Clients complained that they couldn't withdraw money from their accounts. This finally ended with reports that the company had become insolvent and two FPA Traders Court cases where GreenTree failed to respond to invitations to participate. Both cases ended in guilty verdicts.
It turns out that the FPA wasn't the only group interested in Green Tree. The CFTC and the FBI were checking on the company and it's owner, Lyndon Parrilla also. He was arrested on April 12th, 2011 and has been charged with defrauding clients out of about 5 million dollars.
According to the press release on the FBI website, Mr. Parrilla took the idea of gambling with clients money too literally. He didn't throw it away on risky trades like so many account managers do. Instead, they say he spent a little less than $1 million at casinos. We wonder if he drove there in the $130,000 car he's supposed to have bought with client funds.
How could clients have avoided this scam? It wouldn't have been too hard for anyone who could find out the name of the owner of GreenTree. Lyndon L. Parrilla was permanently barred from NFA membership in January of 2010 after failing to cooperate with an NFA examination of his firm. His defense was to deny that he or his company had to cooperate with the NFA for various reasons, including...
Lyndon Lydell Parrilla is a living breathing free Man upon the free soil, an American citizen of the American Republic, beneficiary of the Original jurisdiction;
Lyndon Lydell Parrilla is not a United States Citizen, subject, vessel or "person" as defined in Title 26 of the United States Code:
As beneficiary to the Original Jurisdiction, He is not subject to nor does HE volunteer to submit to or contract with any ens /egis artificial or corporate jurisdiction to which a United States person may be subject.
This was in spite of both he and his company being registered with and having previously agreeing to fully comply with NFA regulations.
Always try to find out who owns, runs, and works for any company that you may want to hire to manage investments for you. Don't believe flashy sales pitches. Check to find out if the firm is properly licensed and registered. Spend some time doing research before letting someone else handle your money. If you don't, someone else may end up gambling away your money on the market, or in a casino.
We wish thank the many FPA members who have diligently followed this case as well as those who participated in the votes in the FPA Traders Court. We want to give a special thanks to FPA member ReportFXscamsters for bringing the criminal charges to our attention.
FPA Scam Finding against GTC and Lyndon Parrilla
Original complaint thread against GreenTree by Traveler
FPA Traders Court verdict for Traveler's case
Original complaint thread against GreenTree by Slier
FPA Traders Court verdict for Slier's case
FBI press release for charges against Mr. Parrilla and Green Tree
US Dept. of Justice press release for charges against Mr. Parrilla and Green Tree
NFA permanently bars Lyndon L. Parrilla from membership
FPA Review Page for GTCapitalInvestments.com
Article on selecting a forex account manager