The alleged operators of My Big Coin have been ordered to pay around $25.8 million in fines to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for their roles in the crypto scheme.
The CFTC said on Wednesday that a Massachusetts federal court judge entered a default judgment ordering My Big Coin Pay, Inc., My Big Coin, Inc., and its executives, Mark Gillespie and John Roche, to pay $19.32 million in civil monetary penalties and $6.44 million to investors they allegedly defrauded.
Gillespie, Roche and the companies were also barred from participating in markets or conducting any other market-related activities that fall under the jurisdiction of the CFTC.
My Big Coin defrauded $6 million, CFTC says.
The CFTC claimed Gillespie, Roche, and another operator, Randall Crater, solicited investors through My Big Coin (MBC) from January 2014 to June 2017, defrauding 28 investors out of over $6 million.
The regulator’s case against one alleged operator, Michael Kruger, was dropped due to his death.
The CFTC claimed that the defendants solicited investors under false pretenses and made “false and misleading claims and omissions about MBC’s value, usage, and trade status, and that MBC was backed by gold.”
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The CFTC cautioned defrauded investors that they might not get their money back “because the wrongdoers may not have sufficient funds or assets.”
Crater ordered to pay back allegedly defrauded investors
Earlier this year, the court ordered Crater to pay $7.6 million to investors he allegedly defrauded.
In February 2024, an appellate court denied Crater a new trial, as his legal team had stated that the court had violated his Sixth Amendment rights.
On Jan. 31, 2023, Crater was sentenced to over eight years in prison after he was convicted in July 2022 by a grand jury for four counts of wire fraud, three counts of unlawful monetary transactions and one count of operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
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