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Attention – Estonian scam-facilitator XChangePro is no longer licensed!
Estonian BlueData OÜ d/b/a XChangePro has come to our attention over the past few months as a scam-supporting crypto payment processor. It has supported scams like Plutus, MDX500, or Blackstone500. On its websites www.xchangepro.net and www.exchangepro.eu, XChangePro claims to be a financial institution licensed by the Estonian FIU with license number FVR000146 and Ken Kovask as its only director. In fact, this license is no longer valid as of September 2020. Stay away from XChangePro.
Latest Updates
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CySEC Compliance Issue – FCA bans FXVC for the UK market
Cyprus Investment Firms (CIF) regulated by CySEC are a problem for the security of the European financial markets. The CySEC CIFs work with illegal offshore mutations, fraudulent marketing campaigns, and target consumers and retail investors in the EU. Now the UK watchdog FCA has banned CySEC-regulated Finteractive Ltd d/b/a FXVC from UK clients. After Brexit, FXVC was allowed to operate under the Temporary Permission Regime (TPR) with the CySEC license in the UK.
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Maxigrid Case Update – Law enforcement investigations and Serbian boiler room activities
Since May 2020, we have been reporting on the Maxigrid Case. In a nutshell, Maxigrid Ltd of Israeli Roy Almagor and its CEO Jekaterina Pedosa, regulated by CySEC under license number 145/11, has been processing funds as an unlicensed payment processor for many broker scams such as RoyalsFX, LincolnFX, 10CryptoMarket, RoyalCBank, and others. For this purpose, Maxigrid used its bank account with the Lithuanian GlobalNetint as well as its own crypto platform BitandBuy. Victims of these scams have provided us with many documents proving this. At least one victim has filed a lawsuit and criminal charges through his attorney.
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Bet90 Holdings – Surviving its vast cybercrime legacy?
In 2016, Uwe Lenhoff, the alleged German head of a global cybercrime organization, celebrated the IPO of Veltyco Group PLC in London together with his partner, Amsterdam real estate investor Dirk-Jan Bakker. Veltyco was to become the cybercrime organization's white flagship and be used for money laundering. In January 2019, Lenhoff was arrested. In July 2020, he was found dead in his prison cell in Germany. Cause of death unknown. Consequently, Veltyco was renamed Bet90 Holdings and has now repositioned itself.
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CySEC Compliance Issue – PlusMarkets, its offshore mutation, and Serbian boiler rooms
CySEC-regulated investment firm UR Trade Fix Ltd operates PlusMarkets broker under the license number 282/15. Within the scope of this license, the company is authorized to operate the domain www.plusmarkets.eu within the EU or EEA only and must comply with the relevant regulatory requirements. But as most CySEC-regulated brokers, PlusMarkets entertains an offshore mutation operating with the unauthorized domain www.plusmarkets.com. This offshore mutation acquires and accepts investors from the EEA and circumvents regulatory frameworks and investor protection.
Payment Processors
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Licensed Estonian scam-facilitator Woodstock and its payments network
We have recently discovered the licensed Estonian crypto payment processor Woodstock OÜ as a payment processor in the Trade Com scams network with GlobalSpotFX, Spotfinex, FXonspot, or TopEuroFX. These scams' victims deposited money through Woodstock's bank accounts with Lithuanian financial institutions Finolita Unio UAB, GlobalNetInt UAB, the Maltese Secure Trading Financial Services Limited, and crypto exchanges. Woodstock is controlled by Marianna Charalampous and does not even have a functioning website.
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Investor Warning – Trade Com Group, GlobalSpotFX, Spotfinex, FXonspot, and TopEuroFX scams
GlobalSpotFX, Spotfinex, FXonspot, and TopEuroFX are associated with a Trade Com Limited, which does not appear to exist. In January and August 2020, the UK FCA issued investor warnings against the FXonspot scam; in September 2020, the Spanish CNMV. Until recently, the Google App Store offered the Spotfinex trading app. This has been renamed TopEuro FX (www.topeurofx.com) and is still available for download. As facilitating payment processors, we have discovered Payecards and Estonian Woodstock OÜ with the Lithuanian e-Money Institution Finolita Unio.
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Wanted for restitution payments – Payment processor XTrabit and Vlad Kogan
For FinTelegram readers, it is certainly no secret that we are hunting scam-supporting payment processors. These payment processors are even worse than the scams themselves. Scams come and go while payment processors stay and support new scams all the time. They know the scammers and where the money goes. They facilitate these scammers in defrauding ever-new victims. One of these evil payment processors is Russian-born Australian Vladislav "Vlad" Kogan. He has laundered hundreds of millions for dozens of scams with his Czech registered Xtrabit s.r.o.
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Connecting the dots – Plutus broker scam related to Galore and Lucrum
The same boiler room apparently operates the three broker scam brands. Victims report that chat history is shared about at least these three scams. We have already reported about the Plutus scam (here) and the Lucrum scam (here). The Galore scam (www.galore.pro) is allegedly operated by ITM Solutions LLC, registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. This entity also operates the Plutus scam. The offshore entity behind the Lucrum scam is Econdary LLC, also registered in SVG. On two BTC addresses, we have discovered a total of barely BTC58 worth more than $3.3M.
Cybercrime Court Cases
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Vienna Cybercrime Trials – Payments, Payvision, and about not being a Chief Financial Officer
Today was day #3 of the Vienna Cybercrime Trials in the case of Marina Barak. Last week, her lawyer, Norbert Wess, had announced that his client would not answer any questions. Apparently, the statements of the law enforcement agent, who provided his testimony today, caused her "I am silent" attitude to change. Marina Barak was then again available for questioning by the court and the prosecutor. Today's focus was all about the financial processes, the payment processors, and the money-laundering of the cybercrime organization E&G Bulgaria.
Regulatory Updates
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KayaFX legacy – amidst law enforcement actions websites went offline
The KayaFX broker scam was one of the biggest scam brands in Europe in the binary options era. Tens of thousands of victims probably lost tens of millions of euros to the scam. Among them were many Spanish victims. Hence, Spanish law enforcement authorities have been investigating KayaFX, related brands such as WDC Markets, GrandeFX, Grandefex, Libra Markets, the involved boiler rooms, and facilitating payment processors since as early as 2018. Recently, most of the websites went offline amidst law enforcement action in different jurisdictions.
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EuroTrader Update – Ozan Ozerk, Soteris Georgiou, domains, and legal entities
We have brought a first report on the activities of brokers brands EuroTrader and LQDFX some ago. The EuroTrader group is regulated by CySEC for its activities in the EU. However, besides that, the group operates offshore mutations via entities in the Marshall Islands and South Africa. The FinTech emperor Ozan Ozerk controls both EuroTrader and the unregulated LQDFX. The British accountant Soteris Georgiou is also registered as Ozerk's long-time partner and accountant as the offshore entities' beneficial owner. Here is an update.
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FCA warning against Binary Forex Recovery scam
The FCA has this week issued a warning against the fund recovery scam Binary Forex Recovery (www.binaryforexrecovery.com). On the website, we have not found any information about legal entities or persons running the scam. Addresses in the United Kingdom and the United States are given. Interestingly, the website presents articles about the fraudulent activities of other fund recovery scams such as Wealth Recovery International (WRI) and Austin Smith. The fact is that 9 out of 10 fund recovery offers are unfortunately scams or operated by scammers.
Support Scam Victims
Join the fight against cybercrime!
European Funds Recovery Initiative (EFRI) is a non-government organization with the mission to support scam and cybercrime victims.
