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Gery Shalon – The Plea Deal and the forfeited fortune of a cybercrime mastermind
In 2015, U.S. prosecutors charged the Georgia-born Israeli citizen Gery “Gabi” Shalon in a twenty-three count Superseding Indictment. He was charged with computer hacking, securities fraud, aggravated identity theft, illegal online gambling, illegal money transmitting business, and money laundering. Most of the files are still unsealed. What is known now is that in April 2017, Shalon has pled guilty to all 23 counts and made a plea deal with prosecutors that included transferring all seized funds and assets to the United States. We are talking about a real big fortune. We are talking about a real big fortune including a $74.7M bank account.
Latest Updates
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Attention! Investor warning against AMarkets
The Romanian FSA issued an investor warning against AMarkets (www.amarkets.com). The illegally operating broker is allegedly operated by AMarkets Ltd, registered in St. Vincent & The Grenadines. AMarkets is a registered member of the Financial Commission, a private Russian regulatory organization operated by FINACOM PLC LTD in Hong Kong and FINACOM MANAGEMENT LTD in London. As payment processors, we have found Mercuryo, AdvCash, and Perfect Money.
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It’s official! George Theocharides new CySEC Chairman
We have already reported about the replacement of Demetra Kalogerou as Chairwoman of CySEC. Since today it is also officially on the CySEC website - George Theocharides is the new Chairman of CySEC. The transition from Kalogerou to Theocharideshad been planned for some time. He has already served as the regulator's Vice Chairman since July 2020. Previously, he served as a member of the Interim Board of Bank of Cyprus and as Chairman of the Cyprus Blockchain Technologies Ltd. It seems that Theocharides has broad experience in finance.
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Whistleblower business – SEC awarded more than $1 billion!
Whistleblowing is becoming a big business! The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced awards of approximately $110 million and $4 million to two whistleblowers whose information and assistance led to successful SEC and related actions. Including these awards, the SEC's whistleblower program has paid more than $1 billion in awards to 207 whistleblowers, including over $500 million in the fiscal year 2021 alone. The $110 million award stands as the second-highest award in the program's history.
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U.S. CFTC wins court case against fraud affiliate marketing campaigns operator!
The U.S. CFCTC announced that a Florida Court issued an order granting a permanent injunction against Ronald Montano, a resident of St. Cloud, Florida, and Montano Enterprises LLC (MEL), and requiring them to pay a combined $2.5 million in restitution and civil monetary penalty for running fraud marketing campaigns in connection with binary options trading. The CFTC filed a fraud complaint on September 27, 2018, charging Montano and MEL with solicitation a/k/a marketing fraud in connection with binary options trading.
Payment Processors
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Alert! Wellington Holdings scam facilitated by SysPay, Coinicash, and AdvCash
The Swiss regulator FINMA has recently issued an investor warning against the Wellington Holdings scam (www.wellingtonholdings.com). The scam operators do not disclose any information about the legal entity or persons but give Bleicherweg 10 in 8002 Zurich, Switzerland, as the address. This is bullshit, says FINMA. As a payment processor, we once again found SysPay, regulated by the Maltese regulator MFSA, in criminal collusion with Coinicash and AdvCash. We also noticed this combination most recently in the Cento GX scam.
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FMA follows Fintelegram and issues warning against WinbitX
FinTelegram issued a warning against WinbitX on 11 June 2021, which was promoted by the fraudulent Bitcoin Profit campaign at the time. On September 14, 2021, the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) issued an investor warning against the scam. In our initial review, we exposed PayNetEasy and Pay Credits as the scam-facilitating payment processors. In today's review, the cashier was operated through a new domain. This is the only change from what we can see. WinbitX is still attacking consumers!
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Investor warning – FinoMarkets facilitated by Coinicash, AdvCash, and Texcent
Spanish financial markets authority CNMV issued a warning against FinoMarkets on September 13, 2021. The scam's website does not specify an operator or a competent jurisdiction. However, we have again Coinicash acting as a payment processor for credit and debit card payments. Coinicash is again facilitating in its capacity as a registered merchant with Texcent and AdvCash, who actually process the payments. Victims' deposits are apparently represented and miscoded as purchases of cryptocurrencies on the Coinicash exchange.
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Investor warning against Swiss Capital Bank facilitated by Jubiter
Over the last few weeks, we have increasingly discovered and reported Jubiter as a scam-facilitating payment processor. A victim of Swiss Capital Bank (www.swisscbank.com) has reported that she also made deposits via Jubiter operated by the licensed Slovakian Global DLT Exchange; lost her money. In addition to Jubiter, victims can also make bank deposits to the Dutch Select Enterprises B.V., which has its respective bank account with the regulated Lithuanian e-money institution Trustcom Financial UAB.
Cybercrime Court Cases
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EU Regulators, courts, and victims chasing Fintero scam operators
The Fintero broker scam has acquired an impressive list of warnings from financial market regulators as shown in the list below. The alleged scam operators are Fintero Trading Ltd and Finplex Group Ltd in the UK, with Cyprus, also mentioned as a location in some cases. In UK-registered Finplex Group Ltd, Bulgarian Zhaneta Radoslavova Kosovska is registered as a director and beneficial owner at UK Companies House. A victim sued the companies in the UK and won. But the problem is that the whereabouts of these companies and individuals are not known. Would you please support victims in finding them?
Regulatory Updates
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CySEC rebooted? Chairwoman Demetra Kalogerou already vanished!
Long-term CySEC Chairwoman Demetra Kalogerou already vanished from the regulator's website. George Theocharides, the current Vice-Chairman, is expected to succeed Demetra Kalogerou as Chairman. Theocharides’ appointment was arranged already a year ago. He agreed to serve first as a Vice-Chairman for 14 months alongside Kalogerou, whose term ends on September 14 after serving two terms. Demetra Kalogerou was appointed in 2011. Theocharides, 49, will become the second academic to take the helm at CySEC. The first was Marios Clerides, Financial Mirror reports.
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Another regulatory warning against PandaTS scam-client InvestXE!
We recently received a complaint from PandaTS because we reported on the scam clients of the Israeli FinTech of Maor Lahav and Shmuel Gutman. The General Legal Counsel threatens FinTelegram with legal action if we would not stop with the reports. However, the fact is that many large scams operate as a white label solution on their platform. This includes SafeMarkets or XTraderFX by Gal Barak. Currently, the InvestXE scam platform is also running on PandaTS. On September 15, the FMA in New Zealand issued a warning against InvestXE.
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CySEC recalled Libertex’s partial suspension on promises to establish proper compliance
Libertex is operated by Indication Investments Ltd, regulated by CySEC. On July 16, 2021, we reported that Libertex was promoted via an illegal boiler room on Telegram. This boiler room was in turn promoted via fake articles. Please read the report here. CySEC partially suspended Libertex's license on 3 August 2021 but recalled this suspension on August 23, 2021. The regulator was satisfied with the broker's commitments to make its marketing strategy compliant and continuously monitor compliance procedures. Thus, Libertex wants us to remove the old report!
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