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Fighting Cybercrime – Indictment against OptionsXO, WMOptions, PrimeCFDs, Wisebanc, et al scammers!
Nikos Aristeidou, a Cypriot citizen, born in October 1958 and residing in Limassol, has been indicted together with one of his co-conspirators. According to the investigative findings of European law enforcement agencies, he allegedly operated an extensive network of scam brokers together with associates. These included WMOptions, PrimeCFDs, Wisebanc, CFD Royal, FXVIP, or Olympus Markets. Dimitrijus Jermosinas, a Lithuanian citizen, born in June 1892, is charged as an accomplice.
Latest Updates
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Malta’s Compliance Issue – Ivan Grixti and the broker scam One Two Trade!
Ivan Grixti is a former Malta Labour Party MEP candidate and a lecturer at the Department of Accountancy at the University of Malta. He served as director of the binary options scam operator Up & Down Marketing Limited d/b/a One Two Trade (www.onetwotrade.com). Various reports show that the company scammed hundreds of victims, millions of euros. The company is registered in Malta. Its registered address shows an empty office at 2, Geraldu Farrugia Street, Zebbug, Malta.
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Investor warning – Standpoint Finance broker scam facilitated by BridgerPay
We have discovered BridgerPay as a facilitating payment processor at exactly 78 scam brokers in our reviews over the last three years. Thereby, our assessments cover maybe 10% of the existing scams. If at all. In this respect, it is easy to gauge how many of these scam brokers are supported by VISA partner BridgerPay. Today we discovered Ran Cohen's Israeli-Cypriot payment processor at StandPoint Finance (www.standpointfinance.com). The Spanish regulator CNMV issued a warning against this scam.
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Attention! CNMV issues seven new investor warnings!
The Spanish regulator CNMV has issued seven new investor warnings this morning. Along with the UK FCA and Italy's Consob, the Spanish regulator is among the busiest in Europe in giving alerts. Included in today's warning are five clones of regulated financial institutions, as well as two scam brokers Standpoint Finance (www.standpointfinance.com) and Kapital-Trade (www.kapital-trade.com). The CNMV's warnings are listed below.
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Consob Monday – Italian regulator orders black-out of five websites
Like clockwork! On 6 December 2021, Italian regulator Consob ordered the black-out of five new sites illegally offering financial services to Italian consumers. Since July 2019, the Italian watchdog has blocked 558 websites for the Italian market. Consob is currently the only European regulator that has this power in regulatory enforcement. It would be desirable if other jurisdictions also gave their regulators such authorization to fight scams more efficiently.
Payment Processors
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Whistleblower campaign – Law enforcement and lawyers on the search for Vladislav Kogan
Vladislav Kogan was born in March 1973 in Krasnodar, Russia, and later emigrated to Australia. These are the dates in the criminal file. Kogan was the operator of the Czech and scam facilitators payment processor Xtrabit s.r.o. Which, among other things, supported the cybercrime organizations of Gal Barak and Uwe Lenhoff. FinTelegram reported on this, and Kogan sued for defamation and lost. He would have to pay the legal costs, but our lawyers cannot find him. He disappeared! Let us know his whereabouts.
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Finally! German BaFin investigates licensed Estonian scam facilitator mercuryo
FinTelegram has pointed out several times in recent months that mercuryo (www.mercuryo.io and www.mercuryo.co), a licensed crypto exchange in Estonia, is facilitating payment processor broker scams on a large scale and laundering money stolen from customers for them. We have discovered mercury acting as a payment facilitator for scams GlareMarkets (here), CryptoDock (here), and AMarkets (here). It's about time regulators started looking into mercury.
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Please notice! Broker scams Tandem Markets and Global Morgan on the hunt!
In our reviews today, we have discovered that currently, via Yuan Pay a/k/a Yuan Pay Group scam campaign, the broker scam Tandem Markets (www.tandemmarkets.com) is being promoted. This scam is operated by the same boiler rooms and marketing companies as Global Morgan (www.globalmorgan.com). Currently, there are no warnings from regulators against either scam. Stay far away and keep your money and data.
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BaFin follows FinTelegram and investigates vanished RocketChart broker scam
In April 2021, we issued a warning against the RocketChart broker scam that wanted to catch victims via fraudulent marketing campaigns like BitQT. Also, in German-speaking countries. It took a few months before the German regulator BaFin announced an investigation into the scam, which has since disappeared. The investigation probably won't yield much insight, but it may be enough to file a report with the relevant law enforcement agency?
Cybercrime Court Cases
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Analysis – More indictments against the E&G Bulgaria Mafia family
Maor Sioni has referred to Gal Barak's cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria as his family. In proper mafia parlance. Sioni was one of the family's executives. Another executive, Tal-Jacki Fitelzon is currently standing trial in Munich, Germany. The indictment accuses him of being a ringleader of the cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria, which allegedly defrauded tens of thousands of consumers worldwide out of more than €200 million with its scams. Jacki has already pleaded guilty to this charge as a ringleader of the Mafia family.
Regulatory Updates
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Finally! BaFin investigates RichmondSuper broker scam!
FinTelegram has warned about RichmondSuper, Blueprint Capital, The Investment Center, Chelsea Investments, NostraCapital, Infinity Capital, Wellington Holdings, YorkCG, and many others. The German BaFin announced investigations against RichmondSuper, which is part of the same scam network, which operates on the broker platform offered by the FXVC group around Finteractive Ltd. Our research shows that the Belgrade boiler room operator Parogan used to operate these scams.
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Alert! FCA warns against social media boiler room operator Les Loups
It is well known that scammers use social media (SM) like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to attack the new generation of investors and acquire affiliates. In addition, instant messenger services such as WhatsApp or Telegram are increasingly used as virtual boiler rooms to lure in and defraud online investors. Regulators have also recognized this. The UK FCA issued a warning against SM boiler room operator Les Loups d/b/a TradWise a/k/a The Tipster (@iam_thetipster). Here are our findings.
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Tredexo broker scam attacks European consumers!
The Tredexo (www.tredexo.com) broker scam is currently hunting for European victims. ABAX Inc., registered in St. Vincent & The Grenadines, is allegedly the scam operator that attacks victims in English and German. Through PaynetEasy's ShinePays cashier (https://gate.shinepays.com), potential victims can lose their money via credit and debit cards as well as Bitcoin deposits. Stay far away and keep your money.
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European Funds Recovery Initiative (EFRI) is a non-government organization with the mission to support scam and cybercrime victims.
