CFTC Charges Avraham Eisenberg for Manipulating Mango Markets

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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a lawsuit against Avraham Eisenberg​, the exploiter of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Mango Markets, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Monday. He had been arrested by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in Puerto Rico late last month.

The complaint stated that Eisenberg used "highly profitable trading strategies" to drain funds on Mango Markets, artificially inflated the price of the native token MNGO on the platform by 1300% in a short period of time through scalping, and illegally misappropriated more than $110 million.

To mitigate liability, Eisenberg agreed to return $67 million to the platform, but retained approximately $47 million worth of various digital assets.

CFTC filed a civil lawsuit against Eisenberg to seek for monetary penalties, disgorgement of any ill-gotten gains, and permanent bans on him from engaging in any trading in related fields.

"Contrary to his purported belief that his actions were legal, in fact, they constituted blatant manipulation of spot prices and swaps," CFTC said. 

The regulator added that Eisenberg's actions violated the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA).

Eisenberg remains detained pending trial currently.