BTC scam– There Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that Cornelius Johannes Steynbergthe founder and CEO of Mirror Trading, was ordered by the US Federal Court to pay more than $3.4 billion for one of the biggest frauds Bitcoin in the history of cryptocurrencies.
A multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme
The South African CEO Cornelius Johannes Steynberg was therefore sanctioned at the end of April by an American court. He received a $1.7 billion civil fine at the current price of BTC. This is one of the highest civil penalties ordered in a case by the CFTC to date. In addition to this fine, it is expected that the CEO of Mirror Trading will pay the same amount in compensation for the victims.
As the CFTC press release confirms, this sanction is part of a long survey of several years which required strength and perseverance from the American regulator who wishes to be firm with crypto-criminals:
“ The CFTC warns that orders requiring the payment of funds to victims may not result in the recovery of lost money, as wrongdoers may not have sufficient funds or assets. The CFTC will continue to fight vigorously for customer protection and to ensure that wrongdoers are held accountable. »
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Bitcoin, the CFTC and Mirror Trading: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
In details, Mirror Trading International is a multi-level selling company (or MLM) to encourage the bitcoin deposit (BTC) on its platform, while promising staggering returns of 10% per month paid with the investment of the latest arrivals. It’s a Ponzi scheme. Steynberg engaged in this international fraud from May 2018 until March 2021 in 170 countries.
So, even if you, an informed reader of Journal Du Coin, know that such returns do not exist, some have fallen into the trap of many promises of wealth that have been made. There are 23,000 victims in the United States among 76,000 members. This Ponzi pyramid would therefore have made it possible to obtain 29,421 BTC, or 1.7 billion dollars for the CEO of Mirror Trading.
Beyond the sanctions of the American regulator and the American government which underline the will of a repressive regulation towards cryptocurrencies, it remains certain that the Ponzi and other scams are systems still too present in our ecosystem. Faced with bold returns that seem unrealistic to you, don’t forget healthy gestures, ask yourself the right questions to avoid pitfalls.
Disasters and hacks don’t just happen to others! It is better never to entrust the security of your cryptocurrencies to a third party. To sleep with peace of mind, equip yourself with a secure Ledger hardware wallet, there is something for every budget. Your security is priceless (commercial link).