Laino Group charged for running unregistered crypto futures platform

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a civil enforcement action against Laino Group. The regulator argued that the organization, via its trading name, PaxForex solicited funds from investors in the country into cryptocurrency futures, without proper registration with them, as required of all futures commission merchants (FCM).

Laino Group ran an unregistered futures platform via PaxForex

According to the complaint document published today by the regulator, Laino Group is a St Vincent-registered organization, which operates PaxForex. Starting from March to present, CFTC argued that PaxForex positioned itself as an FCM, accepting and soliciting funds for retail commodity transactions, which involved cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), including gold and silver.

Among other reasons, the operation of Laino Group was flagged as unlawful by the regulator because it failed to register with them. Also, “the defendant violated the CEA by failing to conduct these transactions subject to the rules of a board of trade that had been designated or registered by the CFTC as a contract market,” the complaint further read.

CFTC seeks return of funds

Although the regulator didn’t specify the exact amount of funds sent to Laino Group by the American investors, it seeks the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, per the complaint. Additionally, the regulator wants civil monetary penalties, permanent registration and trading bans, and permanent injunction against further violations of the CEA.

Aside from this, the CFTC requested “an order directing that Defendant, and any successor thereof, make an accounting to the Court of all of its assets and liabilities, together with all funds it received from and paid to customers.”

The CFTC has been active in regulating the commodity market. Recently, it opened a $429 million lawsuit against Control Finance Operator over the alleged practice of a Ponzi scheme, as Cryptopolitan reported.