Release: #4147-98
    (97-Civ 6800)

For Release: May
    12, 1998

CALIFORNIA
    COURT ENTERS $1.1 MILLION JUDGMENT AGAINST TWO REDONDO BEACH, CALIFORNIA,
    PONZI SCHEME OPERATORS IN CFTC ENFORCEMENT ACTION

Defendants
    Gabor Urban and Marta Ban Consent to the

Entry of
    Permanent Injunctions as a Part of the Settlement

WASHINGTON - The
    Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that on May 4, 1998,
    the Honorable Manuel Real of the U.S. District Court for the Central
    District of California entered consent orders of permanent injunction and
    other relief against Gabor Urban and Marta Ban, who operated
    a futures trading Ponzi scheme out of their home in Redondo Beach, CA from
    January 1996 through September 1997.

The orders were
    part of a settlement of a five-count civil complaint filed by the CFTC
    against Urban, Ban, and their commodity pool L.A. Forex, Inc., also
    of Redondo Beach, on September 12, 1997 (see CFTC News Release #4052-97,
    September 16, 1997). The CFTC complaint alleged that since early 1996 the
    defendants misappropriated more than $900,000 in a fraudulent Ponzi scheme
    in connection with their operation of an unregistered commodity futures
    pool.

The orders require
    Urban to make restitution of approximately $1.1 million obtained from the
    public through fraud and deceit in violation of Sections 4b and 4o
    of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and require Urban and Ban to
    account for missing customer funds.

The orders also
    permanently enjoin Urban and Ban from further violations of the CEA,
    soliciting money from the public for the purpose of trading futures
    contracts and acting as a commodity pool operator or in any other capacity
    required to be registered with the CFTC under the CEA.

The Ponzi
    Scheme

In the consent
    orders, Judge Real entered findings that Urban and Ban created L.A. Forex,
    Inc. in late 1995 for the purpose of operating a commodity pool. Over the
    course of the next 20 months, Urban and Ban induced over 35 members of the
    public, many of them in the southern California Hungarian community, to
    open accounts with L.A. Forex and deposit over $1.3 million.

According to the
    entered findings, customers were told that Urban and Ban had a successful
    track record in trading futures, and that L.A. Forex's trading was
    profitable. In actuality, the court finds, Urban and Ban were novice
    traders who were learning futures trading on customer funds and who lost
    over $730,000 trading in futures. According to the court, in order to
    continue the inflow of customer funds and to prevent customers from
    withdrawing their funds, Urban and Ban distributed false account statements
    that showed profitable returns to their investors when, in fact, these
    accounts were suffering substantial losses.

In furtherance of
    their Ponzi scheme, Urban and Ban also used new customer funds to pay other
    customers, in order to create the appearance of liquidity and
    profitability, and to pay for Urban's and Ban's personal expenses,
    including clothing and house maintenance bills, the court found.

Court Granted
    the CFTC Preliminary Injunctions in the Action in 1997; Default Judgment
    Order Entered Against L.A. Forex in March

Acting on a
    customer complaint, the CFTC, in a cooperative civil and criminal
    investigation with the Redondo Beach, California, Police Department and the
    California Department of Corporations, investigated Urban's and Ban's
    commodity pool activities.

The District Court
    entered a preliminary injunction against the defendants on September 15,
    1997, enjoining them from soliciting money from members of the public, from
    trading in futures contracts, and from violating any provision of federal
    commodity law. In March 1998, the court entered a judgment by default
    against L.A. Forex. The default judgment requires L.A. Forex to pay
    restitution of $1.1 million to defrauded investors, imposes $550,000 in
    civil monetary penalties against the firm, permanently enjoins L.A. forex
    from soliciting money from the public for the purpose of trading futures
    contracts and from trading futures contracts, and requires L.A. Forex to
    make a full accounting all customer funds received.