The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said it had filed civil charges against South African Cornelius Johannes Steynberg and his company. This is for operating a fraudulent commodity pool worth over $1.7 billion in bitcoin.
The fraud scheme, which saw the firm solicit bitcoin online from thousands of people to purportedly operate a commodity pool; was the largest it pursue involving the cryptocurrency.
The CFTC filed charges against Mirror Trading International Proprietary Limited and its CEO, Steynberg. Steynberg a fugitive from South African law enforcement but was recently detain in Brazil on an INTERPOL arrest warrant, the CFTC said.
The CFTC said in its complaint that the company claimed to have proprietary software that would realize significant trading gains for investors. Who pooled their bitcoin with it, but in reality no such “bot” existed. The CFTC said approximately 23,000 Americans invested in the pool.
-Parrotnews.
