The United States Article Futures Merchandise Committee (CFTC) has filed a complaint confronting Florida resident Alan Friedland for fraudulently raising $ane.half-dozen million through a cryptocurrency tied to a forex trading scheme.

The Apr 16 filing accuses Friedland and his companies Fintech Investment Group, Inc and Compcoin LLC of illegally soliciting investments and publishing "untrue and materially misleading" press materials for its digital asset Compcoin from 2022 until 2022.

'Proprietary trading algorithm'

The accused claimed that Compcoin would allow customers to access Fintech's proprietary trading algorithm Fine art and would deliver high returns on investment.

Friedland falsely claimed that Fine art'south profit potential had been based on 8 years of testing. Nonetheless, Compcoin investors were never given admission to Fine art and were left holding a worthless cryptocurrency.

The regulator is seeking restitution, civil penalties, a permanent registration ban, and a permanent injunction against further CFTC violations.

Friedland aware of NFA violations

The complaint alleges that the defendants misrepresented ART and Compcoin as "set for release on the open market place" despite Friedland beingness aware that approving from the National Futures Clan (NFA) was required. The CFTC stated:

"Prior to the buy of Compcoin past anyone, defendants knew that Compcoin could non be used by customers to gain access to Art because Fintech had not been approved to advise customers every bit to trading forex using ART."

The complaint went on to say:

"The NFA advised defendant Fintech in writing that the forex trading disclosure documents, which Fintech had submitted to the NFA for approval, were deficient and could non be used to solicit customers for forex trading using ART until acceptable disclosures were filed with, approved and accepted past the NFA."

Friedland escapes lawsuit alleging $45 1000000 ICO in 2022

In December 2022, a victim of Friedland's schemes filed a securities arrange with a New York court claiming that Friedland and his companies had raised $45 one thousand thousand through an unregistered initial coin offering (ICO) in 2022.

The instance was dismissed, withal, due to failure to prosecute.