US CFTC Obtained Over $1.3B In Administrative Penalties This Year

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) managed to obtain more than $1.3 billion in administrative penalties throughout the fiscal year of 2019, new reports show. These included funds that the US CFTC collected from cryptocurrency operators, too.

According to the annual report issued by the US CFTC for the 2019 financial year, the regulator obtained monetary relief in its enforcement actions. This included the form of monetary penalties, disgorgement and restitution in the total value of $1,321,046,710. This figure, as reports show, is around 39% higher than the one of the previous fiscal year.

Even though the US CFTC did not specify the exact amount of the regulatory penalties that it obtained from digital currency, the latest updates point out to the several charges involving the Bitcoin (BTC) fraud. As we can see from the Bitcoin scams news, the CFTC noted that the $147 million cryptocurrency scheme Control-Finance Ltd defrauded more than 1,000 investors to launder at least 22,858 BTC.

The US CFTC also mentioned a civil case against Jon Barry Thompson who was accused of a $7 million BTC-related fraud along with Joseph Kim who was accused of misappropriating Bitcoin as well as Litecoin (LTC) from several people and was fined $1.1 million.

“The Division successfully litigated the cases involving digital assets it had previously charged, obtaining, among other things, rulings affirming the Commission’s authority to prosecute fraud and manipulation involving digital assets that satisfy the statutory definition of a commodity,” the document reads.

In total, the US CFTC filed 69 enforcement actions which is a higher number than the five-year average of 67.5.

Earlier this year, the CFTC chairman Heath Tarbert was in the crypto news when he called for a “principles-based regulation” for crypto. Then, he said that this approach involves moving away from detailed rules and relying more on high-level and “broadly stated principles” in order to define standards for regulated firms and products.

In late October 2019, the commission granted its fintech research unit named LabCFTC as an independent office. The US CFTC fintech hub started reporting directly to Tarbert.

“Blockchain, digital assets, and other developments hold great promise for our economy. Now is the time for LabCFTC to play an even greater role as we work to develop and write the rules for these transformative new products,” Tarbert noted after the announcement.