The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has charged a group of individuals for a Bitcoin Ponzi scheme.
With financial scams pouring into the crypto industry, law enforcement agencies have been actively monitoring fraudulent activity in the digital finance environment.
According to an official report issued by the CFTC, New York’s Eastern District Court has charged several individuals involved in a Bitcoin Ponzi scheme, stealing over $44 million worth of cryptocurrency investments.
Did you know?
Want to get smarter & wealthier with crypto?
Subscribe - We publish new crypto explainer videos every week!
How Do KYC & AML Work in Crypto? (Explained)
Three of the people involved were United States citizens, based in Florida, North Carolina, and New York, and one of them resides in India. They were charged with wire fraud, solicitation, asset misappropriation, and are facing up to 20 years in prison.
The CFTC stated that three of the charged persons were running two separate staking platforms named Empowercoin and Ecoinplus. They brought in multiple investors and managed to get away with over $23M worth of BTC.
Alongside the two platforms, they were supposedly running another alleged scam called Jetcoin, which is still up and running, offering staking services and NFT collections. With this platform, 3 of the charged individuals, alongside an accomplice, have allegedly stolen over $21 million worth of Bitcoin.
The press release claims that the individuals involved in the scheme had misappropriated about $9.8M in BTC through Empowercoin and Ecoinplus, with another $7.8M supposedly gone through Jetcoin.
On March 8th, the three US residents were indicted for wire fraud and money laundering, with another accomplice receiving charges for obstructing justice. Vincent McGonagle, who is the Acting Director of Enforcement, spoke on the individuals charged for these financial crimes, stating:
"This case illustrates how fraudsters never tire of devising schemes to separate people from their hard-earned money, and digital asset frauds are no exception."
Alongside the charges, the CFTC will be looking for "restitution, disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, permanent trading and registration bans, and a permanent injunction against further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations."
