The Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in the United States has filed a lawsuit against Mirror Trading and its owner, South African Cornelius Johannes Steynberg. The company allegedly violated multilevel marketing fraud† The committee declares it to be the largest Bitcoin (BTC) scam it has attempted to roll up to date.
Huge scam rolled up
In a statement explains the body that the company has accepted a whopping $1.7 billion worth of Bitcoin from investors to trade for capital, and for that to be used for leveraged forex trading. But this was not what they used the money for. the little trading they did was loss-making and the statements it made were misleading.
The South African company set up multiple websites and social media, and even devised a fictitious broker with whom it would trade foreign exchange. Presumably to prevent investors from investigating themselves. The company is said to have received a whopping 29,421 BTC and then ran off with it.
According to Decrypt Steynberg fled South Africa some time ago because of measures taken by the South African government. He was arrested by Interpol in Brazil. The CFTC is seeking full refunds to investors, although logically it will be a refund of the tokens and not the amount invested. The government also wants the company to be fined, that it can no longer be registered (with cryptocurrency platforms) and that it is given a permanent ban on trading.
Eand Bitcoin-scam even bigger
The scam is now two years old. In general, it takes time for the CFTC, the SEC, or any other regulatory organization to charge fraudsters. The lawsuit must be prepared extensively.
There is one Bitcoin scam that is even bigger. Last year, South African investment platform AfriCrypt surpassed the Mirror Trading scam. The AfriCrypt scam was worth $4.3 billion. This project is already executedbut not by the CFTC.
