SAEG Ponzi victims to receive “minimal” claim distribution
The SAEG Receiver has received permission to make an interim distribution to victims of the Ponzi.
The Receiver states however that the distribution payment will be “minimal”.
The SAEG Receiver’s motion for permission to make an interim distribution was filed on February 27th. It followed a $27,000 settlement with Austin Doliboa, an associate of Marcus Brisco, and recovery of $292,263 from Cliq.
Pursuant to his own $400,000 settlement, Brisco still owes the SAEG Receivership $196,065.
[Brisco] intends to pay this amount to the receivership from the proceeds of the sale of his house in Hawaii that is currently listed for sale.
The SAEG Receiver’s interim distribution motion was approved on February 28th.
The amount to be distributed is $1.1 million, representing just 3.47% across approved claims. As of July 2024 there were $57.7 million in approved SAEG claims but that amount appears to have been reduced.
The SAEG Receiver attributes the minimal distribution to:
Frederick Safranko and Tin Quoc Tran going into hiding, along with the money they stole through SAEG (pegged at over $100 million);- seized SAEG Ponzi funds being returned to Francisco Story, as restitution was not part of his consent order; and
- SAEG Ponzi funds and assets tied to Mike Sims being held in the CFTC’s Traders Domain case (restitution was also not part of Sims’ SAEG consent order)
The status and whereabouts of Tran and Safranko, a Canadian national, remain unclear.
Following execution of the approved interim distribution, the SAEG Receiver “anticipates making a final distribution at the close of the receivership”.
SAEG was part of a sprawling Ponzi scheme that had connections to OmegaPro and The Traders Domain.
The CFTC filed suit against SAEG in February 2023, alleging $145 million in fraud. Neither OmegaPro or The Traders Domain are explicitly part of the CFTC’s SAEG case.
Multiple defendants in the CFTC’s SAEG case have ties to The Traders Domain and OmegaPro.
