The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has obtained a court order on Tuesday for alternative service as it failed to locate the director of Control-Finance, Benjamin Reynolds.
The regulator filed an enforcement action complaint against the United Kingdom-based company and its director last June for “fraudulently obtaining and misappropriating” at least 22,858.822 Bitcoin, then worth $147 million. Per the complaint, the scam has victimized over 1,000 customers.
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The allegedly fraudulent entity claimed that the investors would receive daily trading profits of 1.5 percent and up to 45 percent in monthly profits. It also claimed to have used risk diversification methods to protect customers’ Bitcoin deposits.
However, the US regulator found out that the company did not make a single trade with the collected funds. To deceive the victims, it projected fake balances on their accounts and also published reports with false data.
Vanished in thin air?
Despite the complaint, the regulator failed to locate the whereabouts of Reynolds to legally serve him, even in seven months.
“Plaintiff’s motion for an order authorizing alternate service is GRANTED,” the court order stated. “Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(f)(3), Plaintiff shall serve Defendant Reynolds by publishing the Summons and a statement describing how a copy of the Complaint may be obtained once a week for four consecutive weeks in The Daily Telegraph.”
Ordered by a New York district court judge, the defendant will have 21 days from the last publication of the advertisement to make a legal response to the complaint.
“Plaintiff’s request for additional time to complete service is GRANTED,” the order further stated. “The deadline for Plaintiff to serve Defendant Reynolds and Defendant Control-Finance Limited shall be sixty days from the date of this Order.”
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