US regulator charges South African MTI and its operator of committing a $1.7 billion BTC fraud

02-Jul-2022 By: Rohit Khandelwal

US regulator charges South African MTI and its operator of committing a $1.7 billion BTC fraud

The Mirror Trading International (MTI) and its operator have been accused of a $1.7 billion bitcoin scam by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In terms of bitcoin fraud schemes, this action is the regulator's largest case to date.

According to a statement released on Thursday, a "South African pool operator and CEO" has been accused by the CFTC of a $1.7 billion bitcoin scam. The authority continued by stating that this was the CFTC's biggest case involving a bitcoin fraud scheme.

The derivatives watchdog has initiated a civil enforcement action, accusing Cornelius Johannes Steynberg and Mirror Trading International Proprietary Ltd. (MTI) of "fraud and registration irregularities."

The CFTC stated that "Steynberg, individually and as the controlling person of MTI, engaged in an international fraudulent multilevel marketing scheme... to solicit bitcoin from members of the public for participation in a commodity pool operated by MTI," adding that "Steynberg accepted at least 29,421 bitcoin during this period, with a value of over $1,733,838,372 at the end of the period."

According to the derivatives watchdog, the defendants misused all of the bitcoin they received from the pool participants either directly or indirectly.

The CFTC declared in its conclusion: "Sternberg is a fugitive from South African law enforcement, but was recently held in the Federative Republic of Brazil on an Interpol arrest order."

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