Deniz 
Recovering digital assets linked to an allegedly Ponzi scheme, the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission seized $18 million.
Oregon man Sam Ikkurty allegedly defrauded investors from a supposedly “crypto hedge fund.” According to a CFTC announcement, Allegedly Ikkurty pledged to return “net profits” to investors but neglected to do so, omitting even to inform them that the fund’s performance dropped 98.99% within months.
The agency said, “The order also found Ikkurty invested in unstable digital asset commodities opposite his promises to participants, and his purported crypto expertise was a sham because his actual experience with digital assets consisted only of losing his personal Bitcoins to a hack.”
Judge Mary Rowland of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois directed Ikkurty and several other entities to pay a total of $209 million, including almost $84 million in customer restitution, almost $37 million in unlawful gains disgorgement, and almost $110 million for a civil monetary penalty. Additionally compelled to pay a contempt charge over $14 million was Ikkurty.
“The defendants portrayed their programs as cutting-edge crypto and carbon investments when in reality they were plain, old-fashioned Ponzi schemes,” said CFTC Director of Enforcement Ian McGinley in a comment. “CFTC staff not only shut down the defendants’ fraudulent schemes and obtained a money judgment of over $200 million, they also recovered more than $18 million in stolen digital assets that might otherwise have been lost permanently.”
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