As Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero recently stated, the majority of the 1,530 tips that the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which oversees the derivatives markets in the United States, has paid out $16 million to whistleblowers this year.
“This year, the majority of tips that were received concerned cryptocurrency—an industry that still has widespread fraud and other illegal activity,” Romero stated in a statement that was posted on the CFTC website. “With the rise of crypto, more retail customers have come under the CFTC’s jurisdiction, making even more critical the efforts of the CFTC’s Whistleblower Programme and the Office of Customer Education and Outreach.”
Romero stated that whistleblowers assist in interpreting evidence and spotting fraud and other illegal activity. “The faster we can stop fraud, the more we can protect customers from harm.”
According to Goldsmith Romero, “two whistleblowers who provided significant information and assistance that led the CFTC to bring separate successful enforcement cases” were among the recipients of this year’s payouts, totaling more than $15 million.
She said that the CFTC has granted $350 million in total to informants, which has resulted in the imposition of enforcement penalties totaling more than $3 billion.