Texas court has ordered the president of South African Mirror Trading firm, who orchestrated a BTC fraud, to pay a record-breaking $3.4B in damages as a result of a lawsuit filed by the CFTC
- A Texas court has ordered the president of a South African crypto company to pay a record-breaking $3.4 billion for orchestrating a Bitcoin fraud.
- The commodity regulator brought charges against the company last year and called it the largest fraud case in history.
- In June 2022, the CFTC filed a civil lawsuit against Steynberg and his company, Mirror Trading International.
A Texas court has ordered the president of South African Mirror Trading firm, who orchestrated a Bitcoin fraud, to pay a record-breaking $3.4 billion in damages as a result of a lawsuit filed by the CFTC.
The commodity regulator brought charges against the company last year and called it the largest fraud case in history.
Details of the Decision Against the African Bitcoin Company
The federal court ordered Cornelius Johannes Steynberg to pay $1.7 billion in compensation to defrauded victims. Another $1.7 billion was imposed as a civil penalty. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) stated that this penalty is the highest civil monetary penalty ever imposed in any commodity case.
In June 2022, the CFTC filed a civil lawsuit against Steynberg and his company, Mirror Trading International. The allegations were that they operated a fake Bitcoin commodity pool worth $1.7 billion.
Based on the order, the CFTC stated that the defendants were responsible for “fraud involving retail foreign exchange (forex) transactions, fraud by an associated person of a commodity pool operator (CPO), record-keeping violations, and CPO regulation violations.”
Steynberg was dubbed a South African fugitive, but was arrested in Brazil that year on an INTERPOL arrest warrant. Meanwhile, Mirror Trading International is said to have been liquidated.