A U.S. court ordered a British man to pay more than $571 million(4,100 Crore INR) for operating a fraudulent bitcoin trading scheme.
The UK man is accused of scamming consumers into sending him more than 20,000 Bitcoin has been ordered to pay $571 million in penalties.
The March 2 order by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York stems from an investigation into a website used by Benjamin Reynolds, purportedly of Manchester, to solicit bitcoins from customers between May 2017 and October 2017 with a promise of guaranteed profits, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in a statement.
In reality, he made no trades on behalf of clients and made them no money, according to the regulator.
The Bitcoin he obtained was worth $143 million at the time and the alleged scam ripped off almost 170 customers who resided in the U.S., the CFTC said.
The order issued earlier this month by the Southern District of New York said Reynolds “failed to appear or answer” the CFTC’s complaint after the agency sued him in January 2019.
In its statement, the CFTC cautioned victims that restitution orders might not result in the recovery of assets because wrongdoers may have insufficient funds to pay.
