The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a complaint in court against Global Trading Club (GTC) for alleged crypto fraud to the tune of $989,000.
In the Southern District of Texas, the CFTC says the four individuals behind GTC were fraudulently soliciting funds from customers to speculate in Bitcoin price movements. The defendants are Texas residents Mayco Alexis Maldonado Garcia, Cesar Castaneda, and Rodrigo Jose Castro Molina, and Florida resident Joel Castaneda Garcia.
The complaint alleges that from at least August 2016 through October 2017, the defendants falsely represented to actual and potential customers that GTC employed “master traders” who had years of experience in crypto trading and used “cutting edge trading robots” to trade Bitcoin for customers “24 hours a day, 7 days a week”.
The defendants further falsely represented that customer earnings would increase based on the amount of their deposits. Customers were also falsely promised a bonus for referring others, in the form of a multi-level marketing scheme. To conceal their fraud, the defendants caused misleading trading statements to be posted online.
The complaint further alleges that at least 27 individual customers deposited at least $989,000 with one or more representatives of GTC.
The CFTC seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, civil monetary penalties, permanent registration and trading bans, and a permanent injunction against further violations.
GTC’s Facebook page is still up and running, but its website is no longer active. The latter domain is on sale for $35,000. Yes, really.