Regulators bar ex-GM trading manager who admitted to defrauding company

Ex-GM manager barred from trading industry

WASHINGTON — A former General Motors Co. commodities trading manager is barred from the industry nearly a year after he pleaded guilty to defrauding the automaker.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced the order against Daniel Bealko on Monday. Bealko was GM’s global commodity manager for lightweight metals from 1996 to 2003.

Bealko, once an influential commodities trader, engaged in unauthorized aluminum futures and options trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange as part of the scheme from June to December 2003. The agency says he earned illicit profits of $6.5 million from GM’s sale of surplus aluminum.

In a settlement, Bealko consented to the order permanently barring him from the industry and requiring him to refrain from future violations of the federal commodities laws.

Bealko pleaded guilty in federal court last November to wire fraud and tax evasion, admitting he took $6.5 million in kickbacks in the sale of hundreds of millions of pounds of aluminum worth an estimated $1 billion. He was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison.