The biggest civil monetary penalty ever imposed in a case brought by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) was imposed against Steynberg in April 2023 when a U.S. judge ordered him to pay over $3.4 billion in fines and restitution for his Bitcoin fraud scheme.

Johann Steynberg, the former CEO of Mirror Trading International (MTI), reportedly received an enhanced sentence after being found guilty in Brazil of using a false identity certificate.

Court records have revealed details about Steynberg’s way of life while he was living in hiding in Brazil in addition to providing insight into his criminal prosecution. He allegedly had two girlfriends, in whose names he bought real estate.

Steynberg’s crime was considered significant, but instead of serving his three years and six months in prison, the court changed it into an additional fine that he must donate to a charity of the court’s choosing. The Brazilian Penal Code permits non-violent offenders to have jail sentences shorter than four years in length reduced into fines.

It appears that the creator of South Africa’s biggest pyramid scheme is currently being held in preventative detention while extradition proceedings are pending, albeit this has not been formally confirmed.

The biggest civil monetary penalty ever imposed in a case brought by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) was imposed against Steynberg in April 2023 when a U.S. judge ordered him to pay over $3.4 billion in fines and restitution for his Bitcoin fraud scheme.

The hoax, which is now publicly recognized under the corporate name MTI (Mirror Trading International), was a network marketing scam that focused on Bitcoin and stole $589 million in cryptocurrency from investors, according to BitKE. The South African-born scheme had been successful in drawing participants from all around the world.

MTI made the alluring promise of growing ‘investors’ Bitcoin through returns that typically averaged approximately 10% each month. Additionally, it gave members a way to increase their earnings by recruiting more people to the scam.

‘By far the greatest cryptocurrency fraud in 2020 internationally,’ claimed Chainalysis in 2021. Along with the United States, United Kingdom, Mexico, and Canada, South Africa also contributed more than half of the company’s traffic.

A South African court ruled in April 2023 that MTI was an illegal organization, describing it as a pyramid and Ponzi-style scheme.