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Follow the Money – Cartu Brothers, Wirecard and GlobalNetInt
GlobalNetInt has for sure no issue with the online gambling business. Anil Uzun and his gambling empire are the by far largest client. And then there are the Cartu Brothers. Law enforcement agencies and financial market regulators have been after them for years now. The U.S. CFTC and the Canadian OSC have sued David Cartu, Joshua Cartu and Jonathan Cartu for alleged binary options fraud. They ask for money! The CFTC claims damages of $165M in the process. We learned that the Cartu Brothers companies have their accounts at the Lithuanian GlobalNetInt.
Latest Updates
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Wanted for Money – Crypto MLM scam KJ Invest and Jan Kostrzewa
The crypto MLM scheme Optioment happened a few years ago and ripped off its investors by more than €100M when it collapsed in Spring 2017. The alleged Austrian operator Christopher Rieder fled to Turkey. Now KJ Invest Capital, a crypto scam from Austria, is active again. German citizen Jan Kostrzewa operates the scam from his Austrian offices. The Austrian watchdog FMA issued a warning against the scam in January 2020. Investors want their money and are looking for Jan Kostrzewa.
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Estonian-Israeli Pradexx hires former Leverate director as CFO
Pradexx OÜ, licensed in Estonia as a high-risk payment processor, recently has a new CFO - Matan Roee, from Tel Aviv, who was previously the Finance Director at CySEC-regulated Leverate. Pradexx is actually an Israeli payment processor using only the Estonian legal entity and crypto license. In addition to the Pradexx brand, the Legal Entity also operates crypto payment processor NextPayWay, where Angela Behar, who also resides in Israel, is registered as CEO and Co-Founder.
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Investor Alert – Investment Scam Marketing Qliq is not licensed by CySEC
Marketing Qliq, a marketing agency supposedly registered in Singapore, has been advertising via YouTube for investments in great stocks like Amazon that profit from the COVID-19 crisis. The scam promises a return of several hundred percent within a few weeks. Currently, a large campaign is running in this regard that addresses the German-speaking market. On its website, it is claimed that one would be a CySEC-licensed company. The provided CySEC license number 315/16 is actually connected with FXBGI Broker Financial Invest Ltd.
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R4I – Cartu Brothers, the GMM binary options fraud, AEGIS Labs, and Kav Sheroot Tech
The Cartu Brothers - David, Jonathan, and Joshua - are very sought after people. They are currently being sued by the U.S. CFTC and Canada's OSC for alleged binary options fraud. The CFTC claims that at least $165M has been stolen from retail investors. The CFTC did not even include all of the Cartu Brothers‘ brands in the complaint. Therefore, it is likely that a multiple of this amount was processed through their GreyMountain Management scheme and other entities. We would like to learn more about AEGIS Labs, Sandbox Media, and Kav Sheroot Tech.
Payment Processors
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Payvision and Vienna Cybercrime Trials – Let’s scam the scammers and the EFRI Campaign
Oh yes, the alleged German cybercrime mastermind Uwe Lenhoff was a very good acquaintance of Payvision founder and CEO Rudolf Booker. They spent skiing vacations together in Austria and communicated a lot. Thanks to the frequent and very open communication between Lenhoff and Booker, their business details can be found in the criminal files. They show how high-risk payment processors work.
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High-Risk Payment Processors Series and the dark side of finance
Undoubtedly, high-risk payment processors (#HRPP) are at the very center of cybercrime and scams. Very often, they facilitate consumer fraud and related money laundering. In early September 2020, Gal Barak was sentenced to four years in prison for investment fraud and money laundering in the Vienna Cybercrime Trials (#VCT) for operating a global scam broker network. A breakthrough in the fight against cybercrime. the forensic analysis of banking and financial data by law enforcement, the trial findings, and the court's reasoning in the verdict also allow investigating the anatomy of high-risk payment processors.
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Illegal Payment Processors FermenTec Trade and Wascom Group exposed
Scams would not even be possible without the intentional or grossly negligent involvement of payment processors. In this respect, the prosecution and detection of crime-facilitating payment processors is a key focus in the fight against scams. Thanks to the cooperation of scam victims and whistleblowers, we have already been able to uncover numerous licensed and unlicensed payment processors. With the Serbian FermenTec Trade DOO and the Hungarian Wascom Group KFT, we have again caught two illegal payment processors.
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Scam-facilitating Maltese payment processor PayTah refused to recognize its legal responsibility
Recently, we reported that the high-risk payment processor Phoenix Payments Ltd d/b/a Paytah (www.paytah.com), like Maxigrid in Cyprus, has been helping large broker scams like RoyalsFX, LincolnFX, or CodeFX to defraud consumers and retail investors with their payment services. Paytah is to be held liable for this but has so far refused to accept its responsibility for intentionally or grossly negligently supporting the scams and refuses to provide any assistance to the victims.
Cybercrime Court Cases
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Vienna Cybercrime Trials – Marina Barak trial scheduled for March 15 with a new presiding judge
The Israeli fraudster Gal Barak is currently serving his four-year sentence handed down by the court in early September 2020 in the #VCT proceedings. He was one of the principals of the E&G Bulgaria cybercrime organization and found guilty of investment fraud and money-laundering. The German prosecutor's office also wants to charge him and has requested extradition. The trial against his wife, Marina Barak, is scheduled to start on March 15, 2021.
Regulatory Updates
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EU regulators’ problems with CySEC and its investment firms
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) suspended the EU license passporting rules and banned several CySEC-regulated Ínvestment Firms (CIF). Among them Magnum FX, Rodeler, Hoch Capital, and F1Markets. Roy Almagor's two firms - Maxigrid and Maxiflex voluntarily withdrew before the FCA blocked them. The Italian Consob has already blocked some CySEC CIFs from the Italian market before the FCA. Now a problem is also looming from Spain's CNMV as per a CySEC circular. Truth is, that CySEC and its CIFs have long been an issue for EU regulators.
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EFRI takes action against scam-facilitating Maltese payment processor Paytah
Phoenix Payments Ltd provides payments services d/b/a as Paytah. Between 2019 and 2020, the payment processor has been processing hundreds of thousands of euros from victims of LincolnFX, RoyalsFX, CodexFX, and other scams. The legal entities behind these scams have been clients of Paytah. The company directors are the Italian Marco Lavanna, the Maltese Keith Farrugia, and Spaniard Francesc Xavier Alabart Lopez. The payment processor's beneficial owner is payment veteran Marco Lavanna through his Swiss-registered firm named Fenice Holding SA.
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SEC Complaint against Ripple may cause the first financial collapse in crypto universe
The last days of 2020 saw the U.S. SEC complaint against Ripple Labs Inc. alleging that its XRP is actually a security. A regulatory attack on the entire crypto scene, some analysts argue. Once the 3rd-largest crypto, XRP's market cap plummeted from more than $26 billion to less than $10 billion. Some crypto exchanges such as Coinbase, OKCoin, or Crypto.com have suspended trading in XRP. Is it the end of days for XRP and the crypto bull-run?
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European Funds Recovery Initiative (EFRI) is a non-government organization with the mission to support scam and cybercrime victims.
