CFTC v. Krishna Mohan (spoofing, 2018)

Settled

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In January 2018 the CFTC filed a federal complaint in Texas accusing trader Krishna Mohan of placing tens of thousands of spoof orders. On February 25, 2019 the CFTC instead issued an administrative order settling the charges, with Mohan admitting spoofing, a three-year trading ban and monetary sanctions reserved because he agreed to cooperate; the federal action was dismissed without prejudice.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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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 CFTC filed a federal complaint alleging Mohan placed tens of thousands of spoof orders over a few weeks in heavily traded markets and ran a manipulative scheme. The CFTC announced it on January 29, 2018 as release 7687-18.

Outcome: CFTC release 7877-19 (February 25, 2019) says the Commission issued an order filing and settling charges, in which Mohan admits thousands of acts of spoofing in futures at a proprietary trading firm between September 2012 and March 2014, must cease and desist, and is banned for three years from trading in CFTC-regulated markets. The release says the order reserves any monetary sanction in recognition of a cooperation agreement, so no money is recorded, and that the federal action, CFTC v. Mohan in the Southern District of Texas, was dismissed without prejudice in connection with the administrative case. It also says Mohan pleaded guilty in a separate criminal case and awaited sentencing. We did not check whether a monetary sanction was later set.

This library tags the matter as spoofing, based on the conduct the regulator describes. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2018-01-29 CFTC release published
2. 2019-02-25 CFTC settled administrative order against Mohan; federal action dismissed without prejudice

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 press release 7877-19 (settled order)

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.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.