CFTC v. Company and its Principal (ponzi schemes, 2019)

Judgment entered

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In June 2019 the CFTC charged Control-Finance Limited and its principal Benjamin Reynolds of the United Kingdom with fraudulently obtaining at least 22,858 bitcoin, worth about $147 million, from more than 1,000 customers. On March 2, 2021 the Southern District of New York entered a default judgment against Reynolds ordering $142,986,589 in restitution and a $429 million civil penalty, plus a permanent trading and registration ban.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$429m

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$429m

Alleged gain

—

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced this matter on June 18, 2019 as release 7938-19. The respondents named are Company and its Principal (0 individuals, 1 entity). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes, based on the conduct the regulator describes. Each tag links to a page explaining how that technique works, what statute it engages, and what penalties comparable actions have attracted. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

The conduct is recorded against crypto.

The CFTC announced on March 26, 2021 that the court had entered a default judgment against Reynolds, who never answered the complaint or appeared at the show-cause hearing. The March 2, 2021 order finds that he solicited and misappropriated about 22,190 bitcoin, worth roughly $143 million, from more than 1,000 customers, orders restitution of $142,986,589 and a civil monetary penalty of $429,000,000, and permanently enjoins him from violating the Commodity Exchange Act, registering with the CFTC and trading in CFTC-regulated markets. The penalty is recorded in the structured field; the restitution is not one of the tracked money fields. The order and release name Reynolds, who did business as Control-Finance Limited; whether the company itself received a separate judgment was not checked, and a default judgment means the findings were not tested by the defendant.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Ponzi schemes — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2019-06-18 CFTC release published
2. 2021-03-02 Default judgment against Benjamin Reynolds: $142,986,589 restitution and $429,000,000 penalty

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• CFTC release
• CFTC order or complaint
• CFTC press release 8371-21 on the default judgment (26 March 2021)
• Default judgment order, 2 March 2021

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.