This restitution is for running a fraudulent commodity pool of approximately the same value in Bitcoin.

On Thursday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced that a U.S. District Court judge has ordered a South African individual to compensate victims with over $1.7 billion. This restitution is for running a fraudulent commodity pool of approximately the same value in Bitcoin.

The order against Mirror Trading International Proprietary Limited (MTI) resolves the enforcement action brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) against the company and its CEO, Cornelius Johannes Steynberg.

In an enforcement order issued in June, the CFTC claimed that MTI used online platforms to solicit bitcoin from thousands of individuals, claiming to operate a commodity pool. MTI asserted that it possesses a unique software that would generate substantial trading profits for investors who pooled their bitcoin with the company. However, the reality was that no such “bot” existed.

In fact, only a minor fraction of the pooled bitcoin was ever invested, and that too at a loss. The CFTC stated that the majority of it was “misappropriated”. In 2021, the company eventually declared bankruptcy, which was closely followed by the initiation of a fraud investigation by South African authorities.