Cryptocurrency criminal ordered to pay $ 50 million for stealing $ 33 million

The New York District Court has ordered Ohio resident Michael Ackerman to pay more than $ 50 million for fraudulently defrauding investors of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency. Half of the fine will be transferred to the victims as compensation. The offender was also banned from trading on any markets under the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and from registering with the agency.

According to the case file, back in 2020, Ackerman «ran a fraudulent scheme that misappropriated funds for the alleged trading of digital assets.» Back then, more than 150 people and organizations transferred approximately $ 33 million to the defendant.

«Less than $ 10 million was used for trading, and the remaining funds were misappropriated for personal use or to continue the fraudulent trading scheme,» the CFTC said.

According to law enforcement, Ackerman «knowingly and falsely claimed» that he was trading cryptocurrencies and earned a monthly profit of 15%. The fraudster provided customers with fake accounting reports containing «fictitious trading results and screenshots of assets managed by the fraudster.»

The American was found guilty on all charges. In addition to paying a huge fine, the man received a five-year suspended sentence and a year of house arrest.

Recently, we told you about a cryptocurrency trader who lost $ 450,000 in digital assets after clicking on a phishing link. The attackers withdrew more than 356 billion PEPE tokens from the trader’s address 0x9eA2259B731CabD28fB39e0aCD4B671c93183F49 in just two transactions.

At the same time, the fraudulent service Pink Drainer stole about $ 110,000 by hacking the Twitter account of OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. The attackers used the account to advertise a fake cryptocurrency giveaway. The victims of the fraudsters were 880 addresses, and the total value of the stolen cryptocurrency exceeded $ 2.3 million.