South African Court Passes Order in a Significant Cryptocurrency Fraud Case

South African Judge has given a significant verdict on a case that involved the trial of one of the biggest crypto scams of the country. The fraud company responsible for committing fraud upon its customers was ordered to be liquidated for refunding the money back to the company’s creditors and/or claimants. The order of liquidation is in the nature of the final order and will be executed through the court-appointed official liquidator.

Mirror Trading International (MTI), a company that is already solvent, was ordered to liquidate its assets through a court auctioneer. The liquidation has been ordered to pay for the claimants who were actually the customers of MTI. Since the operator of the company had looted the crypto funds, therefore, it was the customers who were made to suffer huge losses.

MTI was involved in the huge scam and has affected various entities as well as individual customers. A petition was filed against the company over Bitcoin fraud which was later on joined by a number of customers of MTI.

Initially, when the fraud was committed, the digital currency is new in the South African market was not considered a point of issue. In fact, there was no law was primarily there over which a claim could be made. Even to date, there is no exclusive law with regard to crypto in South Africa, let alone in most of the countries of the world. Neither was there any previous judgment nor any precedence was available on record to justify the case in anyone’s favor or against.

But when the Court took up the matter, it was clear that MTI would not escape its crime. In fact, the Court’s vision was crystal clear that it would pass a ruling in favor of victims of MTI fraud. Delaying tactics were used by MTI to delay the process of liquidation by filing several miscellaneous applications. However, each application filed met with the same fate and was turned down by the Court.

Finally, MTI had no other option left but to argue the case on merits. The firm’s counsel argued that the liquidation process will severely jeopardize the rights of MTI’s creditors and customers. If the liquidation is not stopped that will result in premature liquidation as the company is short of money. Concerning points were also raised by the counsel of co-owners of MTI on technical grounds. It was stated that the process that led to the granting of the provisional order was not tackled properly.

This case was prolonged using delay tactics and finally on June 15 hearing took place. The judgment was also delivered after 15 days of the hearing. The current issue remains unclear that whether MTI has sufficient resources to meet liquidation demands. The verdict given by the court has apparently favored the victims of the fraud.

In the meantime, local investigation agencies in South Africa have informed the Court that they have traced a large number of looted crypto funds. The agencies have further said that they will soon be able to track down additional crypto funds belonging to MTI’s customers.