A federal court is ordering an Ohio man to pay $54 million in restitution and penalties after allegedly running a fraudulent crypto trading scheme.
According to a new press release by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Ohio resident Michale Ackerman has been ordered by a judge to pay $27 million in penalties and $27 million in damages for operating a crypto scam.
The order also bans Ackerman from trading in any CFTC-regulated markets or from registering with the CFTC.
Ackerman’s legal troubles began in 2020 when the CFTC filed a complaint against him alleging that from August 2017 to December 2019, he masterminded a crypto trading scheme where he misappropriated millions of dollars of customer funds.
According to the complaint, over 150 individuals and entities deposited $33 million with Ackerman, but only $10 million of that was ever used to trade digital assets. The other $23 million was misappropriated for his own personal use or to prolong the scheme.
The complaint also says that Ackerman concealed his scheme by creating false account statements, fictitious screenshots of money amount orders, and newsletters containing false trading returns to keep up the facade that he was successfully trading crypto assets and earning monthly returns of approximately 15% for his customers.
Furthermore, in a separate but related criminal case, Ackerman was sentenced to five years of probation which includes a year of home confinement. He was also ordered to pay $31 million in restitution at the time.
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