The Commodities Trading Futures Commission (CFTC) is hitting a South African Bitcoin (BTC) trading and networking company with a ban and a $1.7 billion fine for defrauding investors.
In a new press release, the CFTC announces that a judge has ruled that Mirror Trading International Proprietary Limited (MTI) must pay more than $1 billion to compensate victims of its foreign currency transaction fraud scheme.
“The order stems from a CFTC complaint filed on June 30, 2022 and requires MTI to pay more than $1.7 billion in restitution to defrauded victims. The order also permanently bars MTI from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), as charged, and imposes permanent trading bans on all CFTC-regulated markets, as well as a registration ban against MTI.”
The CFTC also points to a default judgment entered in April against MTI founder and CEO Cornelius Johannes Steynberg.
The court found that from approximately May 2018 to March 2021, Steynberg and his company “engaged in a multi-level international fraudulent marketing scheme to solicit Bitcoin from people for participation in an unregistered commodity pool operated by MTI.”
The CFTC says that Steynberg collected at least 29,421 BTC worth more than $1.7 billion during the execution of the scheme. For his crimes, Steynberg must pay more than $1.7 billion in civil penalties, the largest in any CTFC case.
Says CFTC’s Enforcement Director, Ian McGinley,
“The settlement with MTI and the default judgment against Steynberg represent the latest phase in our fight against fraudsters who have victimized more than 23,000 U.S. individuals.
Here the fraudsters made the most modern promises, claiming that their ‘Advanced Intelligence Software with Bitcoin as base currency’ would create unprecedented wealth for investors, but in reality they committed a classic form of fraud, a multi-level marketing scam.
Whether they are fictitious electronic trading bots or Bitcoins, as evidenced by this operation involving a South African entity, we will pursue the scammers wherever they are.”
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