Currency Dealers’ Fraud Convictions Affirmed by Eleventh Circuit

Three currency sellers lost their appeal to undo convictions for a scheme to defraud retail investors, after the Eleventh Circuit rejected their challenge to the prosecution’s fraudulent inducement theory.

The sellers, who owned and operated Sterling Currency Group LLC, argued that the investors received exactly what they paid for—Iraqi dinar. They claimed that misrepresentations that simply influence a counterparty to engage in a transaction—here, that the dinar was likely to appreciate in value, and that Sterling would provide an easy and cheap way to exchange it back to US currency—can’t constitute actionable fraud. But the US Court of Appeals for …