Fake University of Austin campus deal leads to $1M fraud conviction in federal case<\/a><\/p>\nAttorneys for the company did not respond to requests for comment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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In his lawsuit, Houston eye surgeon Stephen Slade said that in 2021, his friend Tommy Soriero told him he had a line on a great investment and introduced him to another friend: Kruse. They told Slade that\u00a0Kruse had \u201cproprietary methods\u201d and contacts high up in the Chinese military, along with contracts to deliver oil to several companies and potential deals with government agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Court documents say Kruse\u00a0alleged he had contracts with Jiujian Refining\/Sinopec\u00a0Shandong Energy and Hainan Yingu Energy. Juijian appears to be a misspelled reference to Jiujiang Petrochemical or Sinopec Jiujiang Co.\u00a0He also said it had prospective deals with a Chinese rail company.<\/p>\n
According to Slade\u2019s suit,\u00a0Kruse provided copies of documents showing that $200 million in credit from a Chinese bank was available to a company with which it apparently would do business.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The projection of a six-fold return on his money on a single bet was apparently too good to pass up. By April 2021, Slade had transferred $1 million to Fuel Group Trading LLC and Fuel Group Holdings LLC, which is based in Puerto Rico, where the company was founded in 2012. It says it is a logistics and marketing company that distributes crude oil, gasoline, jet fuel and other products to customers worldwide.<\/p>\n
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But the money never came, Slade said. Imminent sales kept being delayed. Across more than 120 court filings, little is said about the time period between April 2021 and September 2023, when\u00a0Slade says he received a letter from Fuel Group Trading CFO Wayne Williams telling him his money would not be returned and no interest would be paid \u201cdue to a lack of operations over the past 4 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to spelling his name wrong (Slaton instead of Slade), it erred in the date he had invested, saying it occurred two years earlier.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Any updates?\u2019<\/p>\n
Another 17-page exhibit shows a text chain between Slade and Kruse that continued\u00a0over the course of several months.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cHi Dennis, any updates?\u201d was a common question from Slade, followed by successive explanations of delays and, finally, ending with an admission that a pending oil deal with another company turned out to be a scam.<\/p>\n
To Slade, it was Fuel Group Trading that increasingly seemed like a scam, he said in court documents. Slade began asking questions and demanding, through his lawyers, to see the company books.<\/p>\n
Fuel Group Trading responded with a letter from lawyers saying Slade wasn\u2019t a member in the LLC. Despite emails and letters acknowledging his $1 million investment, they later argued he individually was not a member. The Stephen Slade Family Trust was the member, they said\u00a0\u2014 a trust Slade said doesn\u2019t exist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He sued the company and\u00a0Kruse and Soriero individually in 2025, demanding the records, as well as more than $11 million in damages for fraud and other claims. He said Kruse made up the China contracts to get him to invest while\u00a0Soriero kept pressure on him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Slade seeks return of his $1 million investment, at least $5 million in compensatory damages, as much as another $5 million in additional damages and at least $350,000 in attorneys\u2019 fees.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lawsuit is frivolous and without merit,\u201d\u00a0Kruse said in his email.<\/p>\n
Slade did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment. His attorney declined to comment.<\/p>\n
Soriero has asked to be removed from the case, arguing he is a minority investor in the company without any management or control and had no role in Puerto Rico, where the lawsuit was filed.\u00a0He did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
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Company\u2019s response<\/p>\n
Fuel Group Trading said in response to the suit that\u00a0Slade got what he paid for, a 1% interest in a company operating in a highly speculative industry and that those disclosures were made before Slade made the investment. The company lost money but didn\u2019t break any contract, it argued. It also argued the claims came too late and that Slade has no standing to sue\u00a0\u2014 the company sold the investment to the Stephen Slade Family Trust, not Slade individually.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The dispute continued into 2026, with Slade still seeking company records and the defendants\u2019 Puerto Rico lawyers eventually withdrawing from the case. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Then, this month, Fuel Group Trading filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Western District of Texas, automatically pausing the Puerto Rican court actions against the company, but not Kruse and Soriero individually.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The bankruptcy, which lists $751,000 in assets and $105,000 in debts, paints a cryptic picture of the company, with more unknown sources of assets than those that are known.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The filing says the company has $1,000 in the bank.\u00a0It lists $750,000 in accounts receivable from an undisclosed company. \u00a0<\/p>\n
It says it has causes of action against\u00a0Williams, the chief financial officer, for an unknown amount of money for misappropriation of funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It says it also has claims of $10 million for \u201cMisrepresentations made by Third Parties involved with certain prospective but unsuccessful Oil Trading Transactions.”<\/p>\n
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It says the company has causes of action against undisclosed shipping companies for $3.3 million.<\/p>\n
It also lists Slade’s pending lawsuit in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
The company appears to have done little or no business for most of its existence. In his 2023 letter to Slade, Williams said Fuel Group Trading had had no operations \u201cfor the past four years,\u201d\u00a0and the bankruptcy filing states $0 in gross revenue between 2024 and 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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