CFTC Orders Two Florida Men to Pay $5.4 Million in Bitcoin Fraud Case – Decrypt

Two Florida males accused of working a multi-million greenback Bitcoin scheme have been charged by and subsequently settled with the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC) on Thursday.

The U.S. derivatives market regulator charged Randy Craig Levine and Philip Reichenthal for participating in digital asset fraud. The duo lied to buyers and conned them out of over $5 million {dollars} meant to purchase Bitcoin in 2018.

The Fee ordered Reichenthal and Levine to pay round $5.4 million in restitution as a part of the settlements, and each males had been barred completely from buying and selling and registration with the CFTC.

Reichenthal promised buyers he would purchase hundreds of thousands of {dollars} price of Bitcoin from Levine, holding on to buyers’ funds till a transaction may happen. Reichenthal posed as an escrow agent utilizing his place as a licensed legal professional, the company said.

However buyers by no means noticed a satoshi price of Bitcoin. And that was based on the duo’s plan. When Reichenthal transferred funds to Levine, no Bitcoin ever traded palms or was disbursed. And buyers’ funds had been by no means returned.

CFTC Commissioner Kristin N. Johnson urged buyers to pay attention to fraudsters and keep knowledgeable about how they might presumably be deceived.

“Unfortunately, digital commodity asset or cryptocurrency-related fraud has become all too common,” she stated in a statement. “Fraudsters often take advantage of individual retail customers’ fear of missing out on and interest in access to novel asset classes to perpetrate their scams.”

The CFTC’s prices observe legal actions taken towards Reichenthal and Levine, who had been sentenced this previous November and March, respectively. Levine acquired a jail sentence of practically six years, and Reichenthal was sentenced to time served, which implies time spent in custody as much as his sentencing was deemed ample.

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