The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has marked some progress in its action against obtained a clerk’s certificate of default against Casper Mikkelsen, accused of running a $1.5 million fraudulent FX scheme.

Earlier this week, Ruby J. Krajick, Clerk of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, issued a certificate of default against Mikkelsen, who is also known as “Carsten Nielsen,” a/k/a “Brian Thomson,” a/k/a “Thomas Jensen” and a/k/a “Casper Muller”. The reason for the issue of the certificate is that the defendant has not filed an answer or otherwise moved with respect to the CFTC’s complaint.

In such proceedings, the securing of a certificate of default usually precedes the application for a default judgment against the defendants.

Let’s recall that, in May 2020, the CFTC announced the filing of an enforcement action in the New York Southern District Court, charging Mikkelsen, with engaging in an FX fraud scheme and registration violations.

The CFTC complaint alleges that from at least 2015 to the present, Mikkelsen engaged in a fraudulent scheme that solicited funds from at least 101 individuals and entities to invest with a supposed company called GNTFX to trade retail leveraged or margined Forex. Mikkelsen misappropriated at least some clients’ funds.

As alleged, most clients deposited their funds into bank accounts in the U.S., while others deposited their funds into an overseas account and/or with an American ecommerce company for the purpose of trading forex. Client funds were withdrawn from the U.S. bank accounts by Mikkelsen through his debit card, as well as transferred from the U.S. bank accounts to an overseas bank, and from there to a Bitcoin address for Mikkelsen’s benefit. Mikkelsen then used the money to pay certain clients purported forex trading profits as is typical in a Ponzi scheme.

The complaint also alleges that Mikkelsen was required to register as a commodity trading advisor but failed to do so.

In this action, the CFTC seeks full restitution to defrauded clients, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, civil monetary penalties, permanent registration and trading bans, and a permanent injunction against violations of the federal commodities laws.