Forex fraudster Casper Mikkelsen has shown no reason for leniency and has to pay a penalty of $3.57 million, the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) argued in a letter sent to the New York Southern District Court on May 6, 2021.

As FX News Group has reported, the CFTC has already pushed for default judgment in its case against Mikkelsen. The letter outlines additional CFTC arguments for a heavy civil monetary penalty to be imposed on Mikkelsen, who operated fraudulent FX scheme GNTFX.

In the letter, the CFTC notes that Mikkelsen made false solicitations to clients, misrepresenting to them that that he would open individual accounts in their names and would trade their accounts in forex through GNTFX, a purported broker providing services to the retail public.

He hid the nature of his scheme using the GNTFX website to make multiple misrepresentations to clients, created false trading histories that clients relied on in making their investments, and made available to clients false account statements showing false profits and losses. He then used clients’ funds to pay certain clients purported forex trading profits, as is typical in a Ponzi scheme.

Mikkelsen created false trading histories and provided clients with false accounts statements to lead clients to believe they had trading accounts and that their accounts were being traded by him in forex. In fact, GNTFX was not a broker, there were no accounts, and there was no trading. Defendant Mikkelsen simply misappropriated clients’ funds, including funds for his personal use.

“To this day, Mikkelsen has offered no reason for leniency. To the contrary, Defendant Mikkelsen has failed to answer, move, make an appearance, contact the Court, or the Commission even though he has had ample notice of the facts and charges against him and of the filings in this case”, the CFTC says.

The CFTC says that a civil monetary penalty of triple the monetary gain to Mikkelsen, $3,573,860.61, is appropriate.