US regulator sues five participants of the Icomtech crypto project

Article reading time:
2 minutes.

US Commodity Futures Trading Commission(CFTC) is suing five Americans for promoting what officials say is a fraudulent Icomtech cryptocurrency scheme that caused more than 170 people to lose money.

The CFTC filed a civil lawsuit with the CentralDistrict of California v. David Carmona, Juan Arellano Parra, Moses Valdez, David Brend and Marco A. Ruiz Ochoa, accusing them of organizing Icomtech company. The agency claims that the target audience for the project were Hispanic communities.

The project managed to attract several hundred thousanddollars from more than 170 users under the promise of trading in bitcoins and other crypto assets. From August 2018 to December 2019, Icomtech representatives promised investors a daily profit of 0.9% to 2.8% of the deposit amount. The organizers of Icomtech promised to double the amount available on the accounts of customers in four to eight months after the start of trading.

Defendants did not trade crypto assets, insistsregulator. Investors never received the declared profit, and representatives of the crypto pyramid simply appropriated client funds, spending them on personal needs.

The CFTC requires the defendants to return the funds,received from investors, payment of administrative fines, as well as a permanent injunction against the organization of investment activities to prevent further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and regulatory requirements of the CFTC.

Last year, the regulator accused the foundercrypto derivatives platform Digitex in the absence of registration and illegal business activities. Recently, CFTC Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero warned that the agency will not become more crypto-friendly than the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).