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R4I – Regulated brokers ForTrade and Alpari have joint interests
Recently we reported that an investor warning issued by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) against TorexFX (https://torexfx.com) was incorrect. The FCA claimed that TorexFX and the domains associated with this scam https://gloryft.com and https://fxen.gloryft.com as illegally acting clones of the FCA and CySEC regulated broker ForTrade. In fact, however, these sites are jointly operated by ForTrade and the Russian broker Alpari. Both brokers have a vast network of entities, domains, and websites. We want to learn more about them and their activities.
Latest Updates
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Investor Warning – Tesler fraud campaign promotes FXActiv scam
In this morning's session analyzing active scam campaigns and the scams they promote, we have found for UK victims that the infamous Tesler campaign promotes the FXActiv broker scam. Anyone who registers with Tesler to make a lot of money quickly is automatically created as a victim of FXActiv, where they will lose a lot of money. The scam is active with the domains www.fxactiv.cc, www.fxactiv.co, and www.fxactiv.io. The Tesler campaign leads the future victims to the payment page of www.fxactiv.cc where the xPayz cashier processes payments.
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Incorrect FCA warning against alleged clones of regulated ForTrade broker
The UK FCA issued an interesting and incorrect investor warning today. The UK regulator warns against the TorexFX, an allegedly unauthorized clone of the FCA and CySEC regulated broker ForTrade. The domains mentioned in the warning are https://torexfx.com, https://gloryft.com, and https://fxen.gloryft.com. The GloryFT domains are operated by the Russian Alpari Broker LLC and the FCA-regulated ForTrade Limited. Thus, the FCA has not recognized that an FCA-regulated entity conducts allegedly "unauthorized" activities.
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Illegal broker BTC-Trends promoted by THE NEWS SPY fraud campaign
The offshore broker BTC-Trends, operated by Cordelino Ltd registered in St. Vincent & the Grenadines, does not have a license and is most certainly a scam. The scam is being promoted today via THE NEWS SPY fraud campaign on the SafeInvestmentsNow website. The scam is facilitated by GumBallpay and PaynetEasy payment processors for credit and debit card payments. Registration is apparently not currently possible directly through the website. Potential victims have to be referred via one of the fraudulent marketing campaigns that operate as Introducing Brokers.
Payment Processors
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Primic – A German car dealer acting as an illegal payment processor for scams
Primic GmbH with the registered office in Berlin was established in September 2020, the German companies register says. Slawomir Cieszynski from Poland is registered as director and beneficial owner. According to its articles of association, the purpose of the company is to trade in motor vehicles. We do not know whether the company earns money with it. However, we know that the company makes money as an illegal payment processor for scams like AvaChoice.
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Neglecting Eurojust Guidelines – Maltese Authorities refuse to investigate scam-facilitator Paytah
Malta is greylisted for good reasons, mostly for their failing regulators. Malta-licensed, Phoenix Payments Ltd d/b/a Paytah, refuses to assist the many victims who wired money to the company to top their accounts with broker scams like RoyalsFX, LincolnFX, or CodeFX. Victims reported these transactions to the MFSA. The regulator replied that they would not investigate and asked the victims to report Paytah to the Central Bank of Malta, which replied that it would not investigate such complaints. The victims also emailed Kenneth Farrugia, the Director of Malta Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, who did not reply.
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BitcoinX fraud campaign chases victims for ProfitsTrade facilitated by Praxis Cashier
Today we found a new, at least for us, fraudulent marketing campaign in which Elon Musk promotes crypto for getting rich quickly. The "BitcoinX - The Elon Musk Effect" presented in a fake Wall Street Journal campaign on the ElectLinks site (https://electlinks.biz/em-effect), which is run by Post Affiliate Pro (www.postaffiliate.pro) by Quality Unit s.r.o. in Bratislava. Today, the campaign promotes the ProfitsTrade scam facilitated by Praxis Cashier.
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Attention – Illegal broker TradeVtech facilitated by BridgerPay and The News Spy fraud campaign
The News Spy fraud campaign is chasing new victims for many different scams today. Most recently, we have discovered CryptoDock. But the TradeVtech (www.tradevtech.com) scam, which is new to us, is also being promoted via the campaign today. UMedia LLC, registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, allegedly operates the scam. Upon registration with The Spy News, we are automatically redirected to the scam's cashier page, where we once again find BridgerPay as the payment processor.
Cybercrime Court Cases
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Cybercrime Trials – Gal Barak’s wife acquitted but more charges to come!
E&G Bulgaria allegedly defrauded tens of thousands of consumers in Europe out of more than €200 million with its scams According to law enforcement agencies in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, the principals of this organization were Israelis Gal Barak and Gery Shalon and their Russian partner Vladislav Smirnov. Barak was sentenced in Austria in September 2020 to four years in prison and restitution payments in the millions for investment fraud and money laundering. His wife, Marina Barak, who was also charged, was acquitted; the prosecutors appealed.
Regulatory Updates
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Marketing Blacklist – UK FCA warns against the Tesler fraud campaign!
It is about time for regulators to take stronger action against fraudulent marketing campaigns like Tesler, Bitcoin Prime, and myriads of others. These fraudulent campaigns are constantly acquiring new victims for the hundreds of active scams and collecting commissions for it as a so-called Introducing Broker. These fraudulent campaigns are created and operated by digital marketing agencies. 8 out of 10 of these campaigns, like Tesler, come from the workshop of Israeli agencies. The UK FCA issued a warning against Tesler.
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Investor Alert – Ukrainian racket launched EuroCoinix broker scam
A few weeks ago, we requested information about a scam racket around BitStarMarkets, QuantBitex, and Cryptomatex. According to our information, this is operated by a Ukrainian-Bulgarian team in Ukraine. This racket has started a new scam with EuroCoinix (www.eurocoinix.com, which mainly wants to attack German-speaking victims. We have received evidence that at least these four scams are operated by the same team in Ukraine. Stay far away from these scams. You will save yourself from losing your money and having your data stolen.
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Investor Attention – Triton Capital Markets scam still active with new domain and fraud campaign
We received an email today that first led us to the Bitcoin Circuit scam campaign on the https://gdmemsgtll.xyz/bitcoin-circuit website. Anyone who registers there is also automatically created as a Triton Capital Markets scam victim and redirected to its payment page. The scam is currently active today under the domain www.tcapitaltrading.com. In the past months, the scam has already used various domains, most recently with www.tcapitalm.com. The UK FCA issued an investor alert against this domain on July 14, 2021.
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