Scammers aren’t anything new in the forex space. They have existed just about as long as finance itself, and the proliferation of online trading has only encouraged them. Online regulators are easier to avoid, and people investing in online trading seem to be less careful.
That has allowed online scammers to thrive and make digital finance quite a dangerous space. And that’s why a high-profile scammer getting caught should be exciting news for all of us.
Cornelius Johannes Steynberg, a CEO from South Africa has been ordered to repay the damage his companies have caused. It totals $3.4 billion, making it quite a large scam and a significant sum to pay for the scammer. In his forex and commodity pools, Steynberg managed to steal $1.7 billion from the users of his service.
That makes it one of the more significant forex broker busts in recent times. Since crypto is more popular and has a larger concentration of scammers, digital currency fraud has taken the top spot in media. However, forex trading is still significant, and news like these create hope for more online trading safety in the future.
On top of repaying the damages caused to customers, Steynberg has been ordered to pay another $1.7 billion. The action against the CEO has started in 2022 and was finalized on Monday in Texas. The ruling Judge Lee Yeakel was the one to have the final say in the decision.
Steynberg’s scam has harmed over 23,000 people just in the United States. There are bound to be many more victims in the rest of the world, as the scam operated on a global level. Mirror Trading International Proprietary Limited, Steynberg’s company, has been operating against regulation in the period between May 2018 and May 2021. We’d be glad if this set a precedent and paved the way to prosecuting other forex scammers.
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