February 12, 2021–5:02 p.m.
US ATTORNEY’S OFFICE
Kevin Perry, who ran an investment fraud scam that began when he was a teenager and resulted in more than $430,000 in losses to investors, has been sentenced to three years and five months in federal prison.
“Perry’s fraud caused unsuspecting investors to lose their hard-earned money,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Kurt R. Erskine. “During this pandemic, many have lost jobs and businesses while criminals continued to prey on unsuspecting citizens. Perry’s brazen actions, which included his continued scamming after a complaint was filed ordering him to cease, landed him in prison.”
“Perry carelessly continued his fraudulent investments even after a civil complaint was filed against him, thinking he was untouchable”, said Chris Hacker, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. “Hopefully, this sentence sends a message that the FBI will find criminals who greedily prey on investors, no matter how clever they believe their scheme to be.”
According to Acting U.S. Attorney Erskine, the charges, and other information presented in court: Kevin Perry led investors to believe that his investment company, Lucrative Pips, was successfully earning substantial profits by investing in the foreign currency (or “FOREX”) market.
Perry induced investors to send money by signing agreements that claimed the investors’ initial investments were secure from loss.
In actuality, Lucrative Pips was never registered as a commodity pool operator with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC.)
Also, Perry had never generated the historical returns represented to investors.
Instead, he was using investor money to enrich himself or to pay off other investors, with the goal of enticing others to invest with him.
Even after the CFTC filed a civil complaint against Perry, he continued to make fraudulent investment pitches to potential investors, which included falsely promising an undercover FBI agent that an investment of $10,000 would return a profit of $19,000 to $25,000 per month.
Kevin Perry, 23, of Cartersville, Georgia was sentenced to three years and five months in prison and three years of supervised release, and he was ordered to pay $438,799 in restitution and a special assessment of $10
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas J. Krepp and Nathan P. Kitchens, Chief of the Public Integrity and Special Matters Section, prosecuted the case
The Commodities and Futures Trading Commission provided invaluable assistance throughout the course of the investigation.