🚨 THIS IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY.

It’s the CFTC & DOJ enforcement record.

For years, retail traders have been told:

“Markets are efficient.”

“Displayed liquidity represents supply and demand.”

“Manipulation is marginal.”

Cool.

Now let’s look at the actual cases involving CME Group markets.

👇

THE CME MANIPULATION FILES

2018 → 2026

These are not anonymous Telegram traders.

These are banks, institutional desks, proprietary trading firms, commodity giants and professional traders.

🥇 JPMORGAN — $920.2 MILLION

Precious Metals + U.S. Treasury futures.

The CFTC found manipulative and deceptive conduct spanning at least 8 years, involving hundreds of thousands of spoof orders.

Total monetary relief:

$920.2M

Including:

• $436.4M civil monetary penalty
• $311.7M restitution
• $172.0M disgorgement

This remains one of the most spectacular spoofing enforcement cases ever brought.

🥈 SCOTIABANK — $127.4 MILLION

Gold & Silver.

Three CFTC orders resolving spoofing, false statements, compliance and supervision violations.

Combined:

$127.4M

🇩🇪 DEUTSCHE BANK — $30 MILLION

Precious Metals.

The CFTC found:

• manipulation
• attempted manipulation
• spoofing
• trading designed to trigger customer stop-loss orders

COMEX precious metals.

$30M penalty.

🇨🇭 UBS — $15 MILLION

Gold & Silver futures.

Attempted manipulation + spoofing.

The CFTC found traders used manual spoofing techniques and traded in ways designed to trigger customer stop-loss orders.

$15M.

🏦 HSBC — $1.6 MILLION

Gold and other precious-metals futures.

CFTC:

numerous acts of spoofing.

$1.6M.

🏦 MERRILL LYNCH COMMODITIES — ~$25 MILLION

Precious Metals.

Not one afternoon.

Not one fat-finger.

The CFTC described spoofing, manipulation and attempted manipulation occurring over a six-year period.

Approx:

$25M total sanctions.

🏦 MORGAN STANLEY CAPITAL GROUP — $1.5 MILLION

Precious Metals futures.

Multiple occasions of spoofing.

$1.5M.

⚡ TOWER RESEARCH CAPITAL — $67.4 MILLION

Equity-index futures on CME/CBOT.

The CFTC found a manipulative and deceptive scheme involving THOUSANDS of spoofing events.

Market losses attributed to the conduct:

$32.59M

Total monetary relief:

$67.4M

For perspective:

this was once the largest monetary relief ever ordered in a spoofing case.

Until JPMorgan arrived.

📉 BELVEDERE TRADING — $1.1 MILLION

E-mini S&P 500.

The CFTC found spoofing on hundreds of occasions.

Yes.

The same ES market retail traders stare at every morning believing every DOM level represents genuine intention.

🇦🇺 PROPEX DERIVATIVES — $1 MILLION

E-mini S&P 500.

Spoofing from 2012–2017.

CFTC-estimated market losses:

$464,300

Total imposed:

$1M

🇰🇷 MIRAE ASSET DAEWOO — $700,000

E-mini S&P 500.

Numerous orders placed with the intent to cancel before execution.

$700K penalty.

🏦 MIZUHO BANK — $250,000

Treasury + Eurodollar futures.

Spoofing across CME/CBOT contracts.

Orders entered with intent to cancel before execution.

$250K.

🥇 MITSUBISHI INTERNATIONAL — $400,000

Gold & Silver futures.

Multiple acts of spoofing on COMEX.

$400K.

🥈 MITSUBISHI RtM JAPAN — $500,000

Platinum & Palladium futures.

Multiple acts of spoofing.

$500K.

🌍 GENEVA TRADING — $1.5 MILLION

Agriculture.

Energy.

Precious Metals.

Spoofing through multiple employees.

$1.5M.

🎯 VICTORY ASSET — $1.8 MILLION

And this one is especially interesting.

The CFTC found:

CROSS-MARKET SPOOFING.

Spoof liquidity in one market...

to benefit a genuine position in another correlated market.

Firm penalty:

$1.8M

Trader Michael Franko:

$500K

That is literally the multi-market mechanism sophisticated manipulation detectors should be looking for.

🥩🌾 HARD EIGHT FUTURES

Spoofing + manipulative/deceptive trading.

More than 1,000 spoofing sequences were attributed to co-founder Igor Chernomzav.

Firm + trader sanctions:

$2.5M combined.

🛢️ SUNOCO — $450,000

Crude Oil.

Gasoline.

Heating Oil.

The pattern found by the CFTC was almost textbook:

small genuine order on one side...

larger orders on the opposite side...

then CANCEL the larger orders after the genuine trade fills.

$450K.

💻 TANIUS TECHNOLOGY — $600,000

Treasury futures and other CME contracts.

Trader Randy Chen:

more than 1,000 spoofing events across 12 futures contracts.

Tanius:

$600K

Chen:

$150K + 6-month trading ban

🌾 WALLEYE CAPITAL — $550,000

Soybean complex.

And this was not merely one-dimensional spoofing.

The CFTC identified:

• cross-product spoofing
• cross-calendar spoofing
• single-product spoofing

Hundreds of events.

$550K.

📈 FLATIRON FUTURES TRADERS + BRETT FALLOON — $200,000

2025 enforcement.

E-mini S&P 500 + E-mini Nasdaq-100.

The CFTC found the classic structure:

REAL order on one side.

SPOOF order on the other.

Spoof disappears after the genuine execution.

$200K jointly + 12-month trading ban for Falloon.

🥇🥈 DANIEL SHAK — GOLD & SILVER

Federal court resolution in 2024.

Spoofing + manipulative/deceptive scheme.

$750,000 penalty

and...

PERMANENT trading prohibition.

🏛️ SIDNEY LEBENTAL — 2026

Ultra U.S. Treasury futures.

Approximately 50 spoofing episodes.

The structure?

Genuine order in cash Treasuries or futures.

Correlated Treasury futures spoof orders on the opposite side.

Genuine trade fills.

Spoof orders disappear.

$200,000 + trading suspension.

This enforcement action was announced in May 2026.

And then we leave pure DOM spoofing...

and enter something even bigger.

BENCHMARK / PHYSICAL MARKET MANIPULATION

🛢️ GLENCORE — $1.186 BILLION

Yes.

BILLION.

The CFTC found manipulation or attempted manipulation involving four U.S. physical oil benchmarks and related futures/swaps.

Conduct occurred on hundreds of days.

The goal?

Move benchmark prices to benefit physical and derivatives positions.

🛢️ VITOL — $95.7 MILLION

Attempted manipulation of physical oil benchmarks intended to benefit related physical and derivatives positions.

CFTC:

$95.7M

🛢️ TRAFIGURA — $55 MILLION

Among multiple violations, the CFTC found Trafigura manipulated a fuel-oil benchmark to benefit futures and swaps positions.

$55M.

⛽ TOTALENERGIES TRADING / TOTSA — $48 MILLION

This one is almost beautiful in its simplicity.

Large derivatives exposure.

Then physical EBOB gasoline sold in a way the CFTC found was designed to push the benchmark lower...

benefiting derivatives linked to that benchmark.

$48M.

🌾 CERES GLOBAL AG — $3 MILLION

Oats futures.

The CFTC found an attempted manipulation involving massive long positions around delivery.

At one point, Ceres held 100% of the long open interest in the July 2016 contract.

$3M.

And then there are the humans behind some of these machines.

JPMORGAN PRECIOUS METALS DESK:

Gregg Smith
Convicted of fraud, attempted price manipulation and spoofing.

Sentence:

2 years in prison.

Michael Nowak
Former head of JPMorgan’s global precious-metals business.

Convicted.

Sentence:

1 year + 1 day in prison.

John Edmonds
Pleaded guilty to commodities fraud and conspiracy involving spoofing and price manipulation.

Christian Trunz
Pleaded guilty to conspiracy and spoofing.

And here is the part retail traders should read twice:

Trunz admitted that he learned spoofing from more senior traders and spoofed with the knowledge and consent of supervisors.

John Edmonds similarly admitted the practice was learned from more senior traders.

Christopher Jordan
Former precious-metals trader.

Convicted of fraud connected to a spoofing scheme involving gold and silver futures.

So when someone tells you:

“Order-book manipulation is basically a conspiracy theory.”

Show them the enforcement archive.

Because the official record contains:

Banks.

Prop firms.

Market makers.

Commodity merchants.

Desk heads.

Senior traders.

Junior traders.

Across:

🥇 Gold
🥈 Silver
⚪ Platinum
⚪ Palladium
🛢️ Crude
🔥 Natural Gas
📈 ES
📈 NQ
🏛️ Treasuries
💵 Eurodollars
🌾 Soybeans
🌾 Wheat
🌾 Oats
🐄 Livestock

The question was never:

“Does manipulation exist?”

That question has already been answered in courtrooms and enforcement orders.

The interesting question is:

HOW DOES IT APPEAR IN THE DATA BEFORE THE REGULATOR NAMES IT?

Because a DOM doesn't display:

“THIS ORDER IS A SPOOF.”

It displays liquidity.

And only afterwards do you discover whether that liquidity represented genuine intention...

or a weapon.

DISPLAYED LIQUIDITY ≠ EXECUTED LIQUIDITY.

CANCEL ≠ SPOOF.

But history has already established something else:

SOME CANCELS WERE ABSOLUTELY DESIGNED TO MANIPULATE THE MARKET.

That isn't an opinion.

That is the enforcement record.

Welcome to market microstructure.