CFTC Files Civil Charges Against Company for Fraudulent Bitcoin Operation

The U.S. commodities regulator announced it had filed civil charges against a South African man and his company for operating a fraudulent commodity pool worth over $1.7 billion in bitcoin. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said the fraud scheme, which saw the firm solicit bitcoin online from thousands of people to purportedly operate a commodity pool, was the largest it had ever pursued involving the cryptocurrency.