The United States Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has been going on a hunt for traders breaking the regulations and it has caught 27 individuals all in violation of securities laws. One Bitcoin trader from Colorado has been blacklisted from conducting any trading actives after FINRA found him running a Bitcoin scam worth over $1.5 million. Daniel Todd Levine ran the elaborate scam with his brother who is currently on the run from US law enforcement.
A Tale of Brothers
Daniel Levine was selling a trading platform software that allegedly enabled traders to buy into Bitcoin positions anywhere between 60 and 90% below the current market value of the digital asset, but the claims turned out to be false. Instead the platform gave false prices and traders bought Bitcoin way above the market value, with the brothers pocketing the cash. However, Levine was then betrayed by his brother who vanished with $1.5 million that was meant to be invested into Bitcoin. With the money missing, clients lost all their funds and the brothers had no Bitcoin holdings to pay out angry customers.
FINA Bringing Down the Hammer of Justice
The crypto world has its own version of Batman and Robbin in the form of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and FINRA – we will let you decide who is who! Together, the duo have been bringing down scams and illegal traders all over the US. Recently FINRA took down Timothy Tilton Ayre after he sold HempCoin which he misrepresented as “the first minable coin backed by market securities”. Days later, the CFTC fined Nicholas Gelfman $2.5 million for running a crypto related Ponzi scheme. It appears as if no scammers are safe in the US as the dynamic duo sniff them out wherever the hide – cleaning up the US crypto industry.
Scammers Everywhere You Look
Unfortunately, the crypto world is still full of scammers looking to take advantage of newcomers to the industry. Buying crypto for the first time can be scary and confusing for many people, and they turn to “helpful” individuals and companies for help. However, more often than not, these end up being scams where people lose all their money. It’s a sad fact, but until the crypto world becomes easier to enter, scammers will have a large pool of potential victims.
It’s great to see government services cracking down on scammers who are taking advantage of novice crypto investors, and it will hopefully deter more from setting up shop – in the US at least. Fines need to be greater, and scammers need to be caught faster in order for scammers to be put off from starting up though.
