The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has charged Vista Network Technologies (Vista) and its CEO Armen Temurian with fraudulent solicitation and misappropriation of customers’ digital asset commodities.

The complaint, which was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, alleges the defendants fraudulently solicited over $7m in bitcoin and ether from customers. The defendants also allegedly misappropriated some of the assets in a Ponzi-like scheme.

“This action demonstrates our ongoing commitment to use the tools at our disposal to hold bad actors accountable in the digital asset space,” said CFTC Acting Director of Enforcement Gretchen Lowe.

Ponzi-scheme

According to the complaint, from roughly September 2017 to January 2018, the defendants falsely promoted the claim that Vista would trade customers’ digital assets and that customers would earn a 2.5% daily return or “double in just 80 days”.

The defendants said that they would trade the customers’ bitcoin and ether with “Robot Traders”. However no trades were made and nor did they have any trading program that was capable of generating the promised return. Instead, their actions are alleged to have constituted a Ponzi-like scheme where new investors’ assets were used to pay returns to previous investors.

The CFTC is seeking restitution, disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, permanent trading and registration bans, and a permanent injunction against further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations against the defendants.