The CFTC will continue to partner with foreign regulators, Denmark in this case, and other agencies to aggressively pursue individuals that commit fraud against its residents.
The U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York has permanently banned Casper Mikkelsen from trading commodity interests and ordered him to pay $1,191,286 in restitution and a $3,573,860 penalty for a Forex fraud brought to court by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The Danish citizen will have to pay triple the profits he made committing the scam, in he promised clients he would use his discretion to trade forex on their behalf through his firm, GNTFX.
In turn, his clients invested at least $1,536,782.47, but rather than using those funds for forex trading, Casper Mikkelsen misappropriated the funds in a typical Ponzi scheme, by paying purported forex trading profits to clients.
CFTC Acting Director of Enforcement Vincent McGonagle., said: “The CFTC will continue to partner with foreign regulators and other agencies to aggressively pursue individuals who use our markets to misappropriate funds from unsuspecting victims no matter where these individuals may reside.”
In late March, a US court ordered Abner Alejandro Tinoco and his company Kikit & Mess Investments, LLC, in another case of an FX and Crypto Ponzi scheme. The defendants fraudulently solicited at least $7.2 million from at least 322 clients, who intended to trade forex or cryptocurrency in managed accounts.
Not only he used the funds to pay bogus “investment profits” to clients in a manner akin to a Ponzi scheme, but Tinoco also used the monies to charter a private jet, purchase of a luxury mansion and another real estate, and purchase or lease luxury automobiles.
The CFTC first pressed charges against Abner Tinoco in October 2021, accusing him on fraudulent solicitations and misappropriation of over $3.9 million from at least 61 clients. The number has since moved upward to at least $7.2 million from at least 322 clients.
Also in March, the CFTC charged Dwayne Golden, Jatin Patel of India, Marquis Egerton, and Gregory Aggesen with fraud for operating Ponzi schemes involving bitcoin.
The individuals have solicited more than $44 million of investments and misappropriated millions of dollars, according to the complaint, which seeks restitution, disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, permanent trading and registration bans.
The CFTC claims that Golden, Patel, and Egerton operated the websites Empowercoin and Ecoinplus, which have raised more than $23 million of bitcoin and misappropriated $9.8 million worth of bitcoin.
In addition, Golden, Patel, Aggesen, and an accomplice, operated the website JetCoin, which raised another $21 million of bitcoin and misappropriated approximately $7.8 million worth of Bitcoin.
In exchange, the websites promised that professionals would trade their bitcoin with profits being paid daily. In a typical Ponzi scheme, customer’s bitcoins were either misappropriated or used to make supposed profit payments.
