The Ontario securities Commission (OSC) has accused Canada's leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinsquare of illegally inflating trading volumes by almost 600,000 BTC.

According to the regulator, in the period from July 17, 2018 to December 4, 2019, 90% of the volumes on the exchange were created artificially using launder trading, a strategy in which one participant in a transaction simultaneously acts as both a seller and a buyer.

OSC claims that during this time, the exchange recorded about 840 thousand fake transactions totaling 590,000 BTC (~$5.4 billion at the current exchange rate). At the same time, as of December 14, 2019, the exchange had 235 thousand customers.

The OSC charges are directed at the exchange's CEO Cole diamond, founder Virgil Rostand, and chief Executive Felix Mazer.

The regulator notes that Rostand has developed an algorithm for artificially inflating trading volumes. When one of the employees threatened to tell the authorities about it, unnamed measures were taken against him.

The first hearing of the case will be held on July 21. On it, the regulator will determine whether its deal with the exchange's management will take into account the interests of Coinsquare customers.

In June, Coinsquare confirmed the theft of a customer database by a former employee.