(HedgeCo.Net) The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today announced the filing of an enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charging defendant Casper Mikkelsen, a/k/a “Carsten Nielsen,” a/k/a “Brian Thomson,” a/k/a “Thomas Jensen,” a/k/a Casper Muller,” a resident of Denmark, with engaging in a $1.5 million foreign currency (forex) fraud scheme and registration violations.
“This complaint reaffirms our steadfast commitment to working in parallel with foreign authorities to protect participants in our markets and hold fraudsters accountable wherever in the world they are located,” said CFTC Director of Enforcement James McDonald.
The CFTC complaint alleges that from at least 2015 to the present, Mikkelsen engaged in a fraudulent scheme to solicit at least $1.5 million from at least 101 individuals and entities to invest with a supposed company called GNTFX to trade retail leveraged or margined forex. According to the complaint, rather than using those funds for forex trading as promised, Mikkelsen instead misappropriated at least some clients’ funds. As alleged, most clients deposited their funds into bank accounts in the U.S., while others deposited their funds into an overseas account and/or with an American ecommerce company for the purpose of trading forex. Client funds were withdrawn from the U.S. bank accounts by Mikkelsen through his debit card, as well as transferred from the U.S. bank accounts to an overseas bank, and from there to a Bitcoin address for Mikkelsen’s benefit. Mikkelsen then used the money to pay certain clients purported forex trading profits as is typical in a Ponzi scheme.
The complaint also alleges that Mikkelsen was required to register as a commodity trading advisor but failed to do so.
In its continuing litigation, the CFTC seeks full restitution to defrauded clients, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, civil monetary penalties, permanent registration and trading bans, and a permanent injunction against violations of the federal commodities laws, as charged.
