According to the filing, Florida resident Friedland and his companies Fintech Investment Group, Inc and Compcoin LLC are being accused of illegally soliciting investments and publishing untrue and materially misleading press materials for its digital asset Compcoin from 2016 until 2018. The defendant also claimed that Compcoin would allow customers to access Fintech’s proprietary trading algorithm ART and would give high returns on investment.
Compcoin investors were left holding a worthless cryptocurrency.
The Florida resident falsely claimed that ART’s profit potential had been based on eight years of testing. But the Compcoin investors were never given access to ART and were left holding a useless cryptocurrency. According to the filing, US CFTC is seeking restitution, civil penalties, a permanent registration ban, and a permanent injunction against further CFTC violations. The complaint further alleges that the Florida resident misrepresented ART and Compcoin as “ready for release on the open market” despite Friedland being aware that approval from the National Futures Association (NFA) was required.
Defendants knew Compcoin could not be used by customers to gain access to ART.
The complaint filed by US CFTC states that before the purchase of Compcoin by anyone, defendants knew that Compcoin could not be used by customers to gain access to ART. Fintech had not been approved to advise customers as to trading forex using ART. The complaint further states that the NFA suggested the Fintech that the forex trading disclosure documents, which Fintech had presented to the NFA for approval, could not be used to solicit customers for forex trading using ART until acceptable disclosures were filed with, approved by the NFA.
A victim of Friedland’s schemes filed a lawsuit with a New York court claiming that Friedland and his companies had raised $45 million through an unregistered ICO in 2017. However, the case was dismissed due to the failure to prosecute. CFTC Director of Enforcement James McDonald said that they remain committed to protecting market participants from fraudulent schemes.
