The CFTC announced that the US District Court for the Western District of Texas ordered Mirror Trading International Proprietary Limited (MTI) to pay $1.7 billion in reimbursement for committing a forex fraud.
According to a report from Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the company is liable for fraud in connection with retail forex transactions, registration violations as well as failing to comply with commodity pool operator (CPO) regulations.
The Court order also states permanent ban on MTI in every CFTC-regulated market for violating the Commodity Exchange Act. However, the company is already in liquidation in the Republic of South Africa.
The order resolves the CFTC’s enforcement case against the South African forex firm. The Court has also previously ruled a default order in April, 2023 against the founder and CEO Cornelius Johannes. It required Steynberg to pay over $1.7 billion in restitution for victims and over $1.7 billion civil monetary penalty, the highest civil monetary penalty ordered in any CFTC case.
As the founder and CEO, Steynberg engaged in an international fraudulent multilevel marketing scheme to accept Bitcoin from people to participate in an unregistered commodity pool.
During May 2018 to March 2021, he accepted approximately 29,421 BTC from over 23,000 individuals in the US alone. The law enforcement came to action when Steynberg misappropriated all the customer funds directly or indirectly.
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