By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK, Dec 27 (Reuters() – US Prosecutors have filed criminal complaints of commodity fraud and manipulation against a man alleged to have stolen $110 million worth of cryptocurrency from Mango Markets.
According To a complaint filed Tuesday in the Manhattan federal court, Avraham Eisenberg’s trading activities linked to the MNGO token of Mango enabled him to withdraw a large amount of cryptocurrency from other users’ accounts without any intention of repaying it.
Eisenberg Could not be reached immediately to comment. It is also unclear if he has an attorney.
Mango It is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange that is controlled by the Mango DAO and allows investors to lend, borrow, trade and leverage crypto assets.
The Dec. 23 complaints were signed by FBI Special Agent Brandon Racz Eisenberg On Oct. 11 used two accounts to simultaneously buy and sell futures based on the relative value of MNGO and the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin.
By Holding both sides of the transaction, Eisenberg According to the complaint, MNGO artificially increased the price of USDC. This enabled it to borrow $110 million and then withdraw that amount of cryptocurrencies.
Mango Negotiations began shortly after Eisenberg They reached an agreement for $67 million to be recovered.
“All mango depositors will be fixed,” Voting on the deal is voluntary by token holders. “conduct any criminal investigation or freeze funds once tokens are returned,” A community post was made at the time.
Eisenberg According to the complaint, the trader admitted to the scheme and was tweeting about it Oct. 15 “the exchange on which it took place, Mango Markets, became insolvent.”
He Also tweeted: “I believe all of our actions were legal market actions, using the protocol as designed, even if the development team did not fully anticipate all the consequences of setting the parameters in the way they were.”
Mango Could not be reached immediately for comment. US Attorney Damian WilliamsThe ‘office in Manhattan The company did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The US v. Eisenberg US District Court, Southern District This is New York, No. 22-mj-10337. (Reporting By Jonathan Stempel In New York; Additional Reporting by Hannah Lang Editing By Rosalba O’Brien)