The US CFTC ordered the former CEO of crypto lending company Voyager to pay $750,000 to defrauded customers

PANews reported on September 16th that, according to Bloomberg, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced in a statement on Monday that Stephen Ehrlich, co-founder and former head of the bankrupt crypto lending platform Voyager Digital Ltd., must pay $750,000 to defrauded clients. According to a consent order from a New York federal court, Ehrlich, who neither admitted nor denied the charges, was banned from commodity trading for three years and subject to other restrictions. CFTC Acting Director Charles Marvine stated that this settlement highlights the importance of the CFTC in the digital asset sector, with compensating victims and limiting the defendant's ability to cause future harm as core to its mission.

In October 2023, the CFTC sued Ehrlich and Voyager, accusing them of operating a fraudulent digital asset platform that misled clients by claiming it was a "safe haven" and lured them with promises of high returns while lending billions of dollars in client assets to high-risk third parties. Ehrlich described himself as "angry and disappointed" by the charges at the time. He had previously settled related misrepresentation charges filed with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).