Resume:
- South Africa-based Cornelius Johannes Steynberg was fined $3.4 billion for running an unregistered Bitcoin commodity pool operation, the CFTC announced in a Thursday statement.
- Steynberg founded Mirror Trading International (MTI), a BTC pool operator that illegally accepted $1.7 billion from 23,000 US citizens while operating out of SA.
- The news marks the largest civil fine ever imposed in the history of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the US commodities watchdog.
That was the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission promised $3.4 billion in fines in a case against South Africa-based bitcoin operator Mirror Trading International (MTI) and its founder Cornelius Johannes Steynberg, a US court ruled.
CFTC prosecutors first criticized MTI and founder Steynberg with allegations of fraud in June 2022 amid multiple failures in the wider crypto industry. Previously, Steynberg had been arrested in Brazil a year earlier and detained since 2021. The founder of MTI is also a fugitive wanted by the authorities in his home country of South Africa.
The commodities regulator alleged that Steynberg used MTI to collect 29,421 BTC from 23,000 without registering with a US watchdog. At the time, the amount was estimated at a whopping $1.7 billion.
According to the US court ruling, Steynberg’s MTI is liable for retail forex fraud. The founder himself was found guilty of fraud and failing to bring his company into compliance with commodity pool operator (CPO) rules.
CFTC Crypto Crackdown
The ruling marks the largest civil fine ever won by the CFTC in its history. The news also comes amid an alleged joint operation by US regulators aimed at cracking down on unregistered crypto businesses in the country.
In February of this year, CFTC Chairman Rostin Benham warned the crypto industry to expect more enforcement action as digital asset stakeholders mobilized for clearer crypto regulations.
Binance, Coinbase, and FTX are some of the crypto companies under the regulatory spotlight of the CFTC. The regulator also added some 34 digital asset operators to its “Red List”.