Currency Fraud Called Epidemic

Retirees, recent immigrants and other investors are losing hundreds of millions of dollars as off-exchange currency fraud reaches “epidemic proportions,” the departing chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission warned Thursday.

Brooksley Born, in a speech before futures and options industry participants, urged Congress to give her agency authority to regulate the estimated $70-trillion over-the-counter derivatives market.

Currently, foreign currency trades are exempt from most oversight.