Mundelein trader charged with defrauding investors out of $750,000

A north suburban trader is facing federal charges after allegedly defrauding investors out of $750,000.

Richard D. Carter, 49, of Mundelein, was arrested Tuesday and charged with a single count of wire fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois.

Carter worked as a trader for Blue Guru Trading LLC, a Lincolnshire-based firm that claimed to specialize in trading futures contracts, prosecutors said.

From June 2016 through January, Carter allegedly told clients their investments would be traded through a clearinghouse called Straits Financial, prosecutors said. He advised clients that his firm’s proprietary trading model was profitable and furnished statements and other documentation that purportedly showed “significant returns on investments.”

During that time, Carter sent some of the investors account statements from Straits Financial showing that his firm held a balance of more than $6.1 million, prosecutors said. However, the documents were falsified to hide the fact that he had misappropriated much of the money. Carter actually created the statements himself while Blue Guru held only $9,000 in investor funds.

Following a Tuesday court hearing, Carter was released on a $50,000 unsecured bond, prosecutors said. His next court date hasn’t been set.