Financial regulators have frozen the assets of two foreign currency exchange investment firms as part of a fraud investigation.

The Commodities Futures Trading Commission said it froze the assets of M25 Investments Inc. and M37 Investments LLC and has also frozen the assets of Scott P. Kear and Jeffrey L. Lyon of Waxahachie.

The suit filed in Dallas federal court also targets David G. Seaman of Arlington.

The suit alleges the defendants ran an $8 million scheme offering high returns to 224 customers – many of them elderly – out of offices in Texas, West Virginia and Mississippi. The defendants failed to disclose to investors that much of the money would not be used for foreign currency exchange investments, nor did they tell customers they could not pay promised annual returns of as much as 24 percent.

Initial attempts to contact the companies and individuals were not successful.

By ERIC TORBENSON

Dallas-Fort Worth home prices fell by the smallest percentage in almost two years in the latest housing market snapshot. D-FW prices were down only 1.6 percent in July from a year earlier in the closely watched S&P/Case-Shiller home price index.  And local home prices were up from June to July, the fifth consecutive month of increases. The July figure is also the highest point in the home price index since last September. The small annual Read More →

Texas Instruments Inc. said Tuesday that it is finally ready to start making computer chips at a plant it completed in Richardson in 2006. The company said it has begun hiring the first 250 workers for the plant, which it says will eventually employ as many as 1,000. The building has been sitting empty. Now, with the discounted purchase of $172.5 million in manufacturing equipment from a company in bankruptcy, TI is ready to get Read More →