As per the information released by a Texas judge, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has successfully unearthed the biggest-ever fraud case related to Bitcoin. According to the facts gathered, the erring party has been compelled to pay a penalty of $3.4 billion. The perpetrator of the crime is one Cornelius Johannes SteynBerg, the Chief Executive Officer of Mirror Trading International Proprietary Limited (MTI).
As per the details regarding the deal, half the amount of the penalty will be effectively utilized in the form of compensation for the people who were made to suffer because of the organization’s deceitful act. The balance amount will be seen as a civil penalty. This, incidentally, is the absolute maximum amount of penalty that the CFTC has levied to date.
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According to reliable sources from the CFTC, an order of default judgment and permanent injunction has been listed in the name of the fraudster by the judge of the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Texas, Lee Yeakel. It is, however, not confirmed whether there will be any amount paid in the form of compensation, as the truth of the matter seems to be that the company will, in all probability, not be able to come up with such an amount.
It was sometime in the middle of 2022 that the CFTC first filed formal charges against Steynberg. The facts of the case state that the individual had been involved in a nefarious multi-level marketing scheme (MLM) to seek Bitcoin from the market. This would happen with individuals participating in an unregistered commodity pool run by a fraudulent company. From 2018 to 2021, Steynberg was in charge of MTI, and the company misrepresented the fact that trading was carried out off-exchange in retail forex through a proprietary software program. The company also misused all of the Bitcoin obtained during the period.
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The CFTC was able to unravel the fact that Steynberg, in the role of the principal agent of MTI, carried away 29,421 Bitcoin, equivalent to more than $1.7 billion, from almost 23,000 people belonging to the U.S. as well as globally. There was an Interpol arrest warrant issued in his name in Brazil, against which he was arrested in the month of December 2021. He is not allowed to register with the CFTC or carry out trading in CFTC-regulated markets.
