Court orders Texas man and his firm to pay over $13 million in CFTC commodity pool fraud case

A US federal court in Texas has ordered Walter Dunning Larrick III and his company, Cambridge Financial Advisors LLC, to pay a $9,767,625 civil monetary penalty and $3,255,875 in restitution for a commodities fraud scheme, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced on 3 November 2026.

The US District Court for the Northern District of Texas entered a default judgment against both defendants. It resolves all the claims in the complaint the CFTC filed in 2023.

What the court found

According to the CFTC, the court found that the defendants fraudulently solicited and misappropriated more than $3 million from participants. They falsely said they would use the money to trade futures and options, including contracts on natural gas, oil and gold, misrepresented how profitable trading with them would be, and issued false account statements to hide what they were doing.

The court also found that participants’ money went to pay existing participants in a way the CFTC describes as akin to a Ponzi scheme, to cover Larrick’s personal expenses and to offshore accounts in Costa Rica.

Besides the payments, the order permanently bars the defendants from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations, and imposes permanent trading and registration bans.

How the case began

The CFTC’s complaint, filed in August 2023, alleged that from at least November 2020 through at least January 2023 the defendants pooled at least $3,644,817.52 from about 70 participants. According to the complaint, they told participants that Cambridge had been in business for over 20 years, that it would buy futures and options in large “blocks” at a discount, and that its hedging strategy made money whether prices rose or fell. They also said Cambridge would take a 15% commission on trading profits and that participants could withdraw their money at any time.

What it means for traders

The claims in this case, a strategy said to profit whichever way prices move and discounted “block” trades, were false according to the court’s findings. Anyone asked to hand money to a pool or adviser to trade futures can check the firm first; our investor alert on what to check before trading sets out the steps.