The CFTC on Monday, September 30, 2019 issued an order filing and settling charges against Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. for engaging in spoofing on multiple occasions in the precious metals futures markets from at least November 2013 to November 2014.

The CFTC on Monday, September 30, 2019 issued an order filing and settling charges against Mitsubishi International Corporation for engaging in multiple acts of spoofing on the Commodity Exchange, Inc. markets for silver and gold futures.

◆ JPMorgan’s head of precious metals trading and senior traders have been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with rigging precious metal prices in a “massive, multiyear scheme”

The U.S. Justice Department said today the three men ripped off market participants and even clients as they illegally moved prices for gold, silver, platinum, and palladium.

Their actions spanned eight years and involved thousands of unlawful trading sequences, the Justice Department said. The men were indicted on multiple fraud and conspiracy charges, including racketeering.

Andy Schectman, President, Miles Franklin Precious Metals, warns that market deception leads to a flawed perception of reality.

Christiaan Trunz, another former JPMorgan metals trader, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiracy and to manipulating prices in the precious-metals market as part of the U.S. government’s continuing crackdown on bogus spoofing trades.

A few weeks ago, you may have seen the story of a British member of Parliament reading into the official record a lengthy synopsis of precious metal price manipulation, the sordid involvement of the bullion banks and the risks these banks pose to the global financial system.

By siphoning off demand for real gold and silver and channeling it into unbacked or fractionally-backed credits and futures, the central banks and their bullion bank counterparts have done an amazing job in creating an entire market structure of futures and synthetics trading that is unconnected to the physical gold and silver markets. This structure siphons off demand away from the physical precious metals markets, and in doing so, creates a system of price discovery which is nothing to do with physical gold and silver supply and demand.

As MLCI itself admitted, beginning in 2008 and continuing through 2014, precious metals traders employed by MLCI schemed to deceive other market participants by injecting materially false and misleading information into the precious metals futures market.

Bart will forever be known (especially by those in the silver community) as one of the former commissioners of the CFTC. And in particular, the one CFTC commissioner who often spoke out about how he did feel there was illegal trading activity going on in the silver market.

The Justice Department’s investigation of manipulation in the precious-metals markets at JPMorgan Chase & Co. spurred prosecutors to ask a judge to delay a civil lawsuit focusing on similar misconduct.

Former trader John Edmonds pleaded guilty last month to federal charges that he placed hundreds of orders in the futures market he never intended to execute, in a six-year spoofing scheme. On Monday, the Justice Department asked the judge overseeing an antitrust lawsuit against JPMorgan to delay the case for six months to “protect the integrity” of its ongoing criminal probe.