The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the US regulator of commodities, has brought civil lawsuits against a South African company and its CEO. The fact that the business was running a phony commodity pool is what sparked these lawsuits. This one is worth more than $1.7 billion in Bitcoins, according to estimates.
The CFTC is suing South African company Mirror Trading International Proprietary Limited for fraud.
Mirror Trading International Proprietary Limited is being sued by the CFTC (MTI). Between May 2018 and March 2021, the South African bitcoin pool operator and its CEO, Cornelius Johannes Steynberg, solicited bitcoins online from thousands of people, including 23,000 Americans. The man had set up a system to defraud people out of more than 1.7 billion dollars. According to the CFTC, MTI devised a plan “to solicit, accept, and pool more than $1.7 billion.” And this is to trade retail off-exchange foreign exchange (FX) on the basis of funding, margin, or leverage.
MTI was merely a Ponzi scheme, according to CFTC.
The CFTC asserted that the corporation embezzled mutual funds rather than trading currencies as indicated by MTI. In fact, MTI fabricated account statements, misrepresented trades and performance, and utilized a phony broker to execute the trades. Just a portion of the combined 29,421 bitcoins were put to use. Additionally, Cornelius Johannes Steynberg and company made up the use of trading “bots.” The CFTC has never managed a Ponzi scheme with a BTC amount as large as this one.
23,000 Americans have been conned, among others
“The defendants participated in a global deceptive marketing campaign. The latter occurred on a number of levels through numerous websites in addition to social media. Its goal was to entice the general public to donate Bitcoins so they could join their pool. Most, if not all, of the pool’s 23,000 participants were ineligible contract participants and came from the United States, according to the CFTC statement.
The CFTC’s lawsuit is a demand for complete compensation on behalf of the participants who were misled. In addition to civil monetary fines, long-term trade and registration restrictions, and other restitution… Interpol just made an arrest of wanted man Cornelius Steynberg in Brazil. Many businesses, whether they are part of the blockchain community or not, have engaged in Ponzi schemes.
