The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is suing Breonna Clark, also known as Eliot Clark or Alexander Pak, an alleged Ponzi scammer, who was claimed that he and Venture Capital Investments Ltd. and The Life Group, his company, raised half a million dollars for cryptocurrency investments, which instead went to personal uses.
CFTC Sues Alleged Crypto Ponzi Scammer for $500K Theft https://t.co/3aQDWWYhPX #news #bitcoin #cryptocurrency — CryptBee (@CryptBeee) February 15, 2020
It has been reported in a press release that Clark and his firm allegedly raised $534,829 from 72 victims, promising to invest funds in bitcoin (BTC), altcoins and foreign currency contracts. Instead, some $400,000 in funds went to personal uses, including the purchase of a BMW.
However, the CFTC is charging Clark with fraud by a commodity pool operator and commodity trading adviser, fraud by deceptive device, failure to register as a commodity pool operator and failure to register as a commodity trading advisor.
Clark created “false account statements” to mislead investors and used some of the funds he raised to pay off other investors, an attached complaint claims. “A small portion” of the funds were ultimately used to trade on the pool’s behalf.
Likewise, the complaint, which the CFTC did not conduct an audit, said:
“At various times during the Relevant Period, several pool participants requested to withdraw funds from their accounts. In some instances, Clark failed to respond at all to a pool participant’s request. In other instances, Clark responded with false excuses. Among the false excuses Clark made to pool participants why Defendants could not comply was that the CFTC was conducting an ‘audit’.”
The complaint also said that Clark did not return any of the funds raised through the alleged scheme.
Thus, the press release thanked the Financial Supervision Commission of Bulgaria, Financial Markets Authority of New Zealand, Seychelles Financial Services Authority, St. Vincent and the Grenadines Financial Services Authority and the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority.
Source: cftc.gov | coindesk.com
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