Michael Ackerman, from Alliance, Ohio, has been ordered to pay over $50 million for a bogus digital asset trading scam.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has received a default judgment regarding Ackerman from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Ackerman has been banned from trading any CFTC-regulated markets and registering with the CFTC. The order requires a payment of $27 million in restitution to defrauded victims and a $27 million civil monetary penalty.
The CFTC notes that in February 2022, Ackerman was sentenced, in a related criminal case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, to five years of probation with a year of home confinement. On August 22, 2022, Ackerman was ordered to pay $31 million in restitution.
The CFTC filed the complaint on February 11, 2020 alleging that from August 2017 through December 2019, Ackerman operated a fraudulent ploy that solicited and misappropriated funds to purportedly trade digital commodity assets.
The complaint claims that more than 150 individuals and entities deposited at least $33 million with him. However, less than $10 million was used to trade digital commodity assets, and the remaining funds were misappropriated for personal use or to prolong the fraudulent trading scheme.
To further the scam, Ackerman falsely represented that he was profitably trading digital commodity assets and earning monthly returns of approximately 15%. Ackerman apparently provided customers with false accounting statements, newsletters containing false trading returns, and fictitious screenshots of the amount of money under management.
The CFTC cautions that orders requiring payment of funds to victims may not result in the recovery of any money lost.