CFTC wants to re-open case against binary options, virtual currency scammer Blake Kantor
The motion is filed about a month after Kantor entered a guilty plea in a related criminal case.
The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) wants the civil case against alleged binary options and virtual currency scammer Blake Kantor to be re-opened. The relevant motion was filed with the New York Eastern District Court earlier today.
Let’s recall that, in May 2018, upon application by the defendant for a stay of the civil proceeding, the Court entered a stay and administratively closed this case. The stay order specifically provided that the CFTC was permitted to move to reopen this case within 45 days after Kantor enters a plea of guilty in his related criminal case.
On November 19, 2018, Kantor entered a guilty plea in his criminal case.
That is why, the CFTC now requests that this stay be lifted and the case be administratively re-opened, which is being done within the requisite 45-day window as permitted. Further, the CFTC proposes that the Court order a status hearing in the matter sometime in January 2019 or thereafter.
The civil case targets Blake Kantor, Nathan Mullins, Blue Bit Banc, Blue Bit Analytics, Ltd., G. Thomas Client Services, and Blue Wolf Sales Consultants.
The defendants are accused of having solicited potential customers through emails, phone calls, and a website to purchase illegal off-exchange binary options via companies such as Blue Bit Banc. The defendants sought to cover up their misappropriation by inviting customers to transfer their binary options account balances into a virtual currency known as ATM Coin. The scam allegedly started in April 2014.
In 2014, Kantor established BBB, which sold binary options. From approximately 2014 to 2017, Kantor and others solicited and took in approximately $1.5 million from more than 700 investors in BBB’s binary options. Kantor told investors that they could place binary option trades, or a BBB representative could do so for them, and that the predetermined profits promised them would be based on the actual prices of securities, currencies and other investments at particular points in time.
However, Kantor did not inform the investors that a computer software program of BBB’s fraudulently altered data associated with binary options investments so that the probability of investors earning a profit favored BBB and disadvantaged investors.
Kantor als directed that bank accounts – including one in the island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis – be opened using aliases and identifying information of others, making it more difficult to trace the funds that Kantor fraudulently took from investors.
