MyForexFunds: how the CFTC accused the firm over $310 million — and lost

More than 135,000 traders entrusted their money to MyForexFunds, paying, according to the regulator, at least $310 million in fees for the right to trade "on the company's capital". In August 2023 the U.S. regulator, the CFTC, accused the firm of a massive scam and froze its assets. But the ending of this story turned out to be nothing like what the victims expected: the case was dismissed, and it was the regulator itself that had to pay the legal costs.

MyForexFunds, legally controlled by the Canadian company Traders Global Group Inc. and headed by Murtuza Kazmi, operated on the classic proprietary-trading model: the client pays for an "evaluation", passes it, and gains the right to trade with what is supposedly the company's real capital, keeping a share of the profit. From November 2021 onward more than 135,000 people around the world signed up for this model, and total fees, according to the CFTC's estimate, exceeded $310 million — a scale that made the company one of the most prominent players in the industry.

On 28 August 2023 the CFTC filed a lawsuit against Traders Global Group and Murtuza Kazmi. According to the regulator, MyForexFunds misled clients about the very nature of their accounts: traders were promised trading on real markets through independent liquidity providers, whereas in reality their trades were executed on simulated accounts fully controlled by the company itself, which acted as the direct counterparty to every client trade. This meant, the CFTC contended, that a trader's profit automatically became the firm's loss. Following the lawsuit, the company's assets were frozen and its operations were halted for more than two years.

However, in the course of the proceedings serious problems emerged with the regulator's own conduct. Special Master Jose Linares recommended dismissing the case and imposing sanctions on the CFTC, finding that even before filing the lawsuit the regulator had known that the fund transfers it presented as a sign of asset withdrawal were in fact lawful tax payments made by the company to the Canadian tax authority — the Ontario Securities Commission had reported this to the CFTC as early as 17 August 2023. On 13 May 2025 Judge Edward Kiel formally dismissed the case against MyForexFunds and Murtuza Kazmi "with prejudice" (that is, with no right to refile), and the CFTC was ordered to reimburse the defendants more than $3.1 million in legal costs.

After the court's decision, the company began speaking publicly about returning to the market and reconnecting with clients, while in parallel further legal procedures around the unfreezing of assets continue in Ontario. For the traders whose money had remained frozen for two years, the court's ruling was less a victory than the beginning of a slow thaw — payouts only resumed after it.

Published 15 June 2025