he US financial regulator Commodity Futures and Trading Commission recently announced that it had filed a complaint in a United States court against four individuals for alleged fraudulent soliciting of funds from customers to speculate in Bitcoin price movements. According to a US regulator, the CFTC filed its complaint in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas against Texas residents Mayco Alexis Maldonado Garcia, Cesar Castaneda, and Rodrigo Jose Castro Molina, and Joel Castaneda Garcia, who resides in Florida.
Four individuals named in the complaint made false promises.
According to the CFTC complaint, four individuals falsely represented to clients and potential clients that their business, Global Trading Club (GTC), employed ‘master traders’ with years of experience trading cryptocurrencies and used ‘cutting edge trading robots.’ They did this from at least August 2016 until October 2017, the authority noted. The CFTC further outlined that the defendants claimed that customer earnings would increase if they increased their deposit amounts. The four individuals named in the complaint promised the clients a bonus for referring others, in the form of a multi-level marketing scheme, the regulator said in the complaint.
The defendants managed to scam at least 27 individuals.
In order to conceal their fraud, the defendants posted misleading and false trading statements online. The CFTC has alleged that the defendants managed to scam at least 27 individuals into depositing at least $989,000 with one or more GTC representatives. The CFTC said in a statement that they are seeking disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, civil monetary penalties, permanent registration and trading bans, and a permanent injunction against further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and the Commission’s regulations, as charged. Crypto scams have increased across countries this year amid the ongoing pandemic.
