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Campany charged in precious metals scam

By Palm Beach Business.com

FORT LAUDERDALE — A Palm Beach County precious metals dealer is expected to appear in federal court Wednesday morning after being charged Tuesday with nine counts of mail and wire fraud in connection with a scam that allegedly took as many as 1,400 investors for $25 million.

Federal authorities have charged Jamie Campany, 47, of Palm Beach County, with five counts of mail fraud and four counts of wire fraud. Campany owned three firms, Global Bullion Exchange, Barclay Trading Group and The Bullion Group,  that allegedly specialized in buying and selling gold silver, platinum and palladium.

Court documents allege that Campany’s three firms conducted a sophisticated telemarketing operation that conned investors into buying precious metals using purported “leverage” financing. The investors were told that they would need only to provide a fraction of the total cost of the metals, with the remainder of the purchase price to be covered by margin-type financing extended by a purported “clearing firm.”

Campany’s firms did buy some metals for their clients but court records show that most investor money was paid out in the form of commissions to employees. That didn’t stop them from grabbing more money from their clients.

They would charge their clients interest on the purported loans, then make periodic “margin calls” when commodity prices declined.  When a client couldn’t come up with the cash, they were told that their investment had been liquidated.

When clients wanted to pull out their investments, Campany would pay them off using money from newer investors, the very definition of a Ponzi scheme, according to federal authorities.

Campany faces a maximum sentence of twenty years imprisonment and a maximum $250,000.00 fine for each of the nine  fraud counts.