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Breaking News – SEC files complaint against white-label broker hub SpotOption and its owners
The Israeli broker white-label operator SpotOption is related to the Yukom Case. Today, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Spot Tech House Ltd (d/b/a SpotOption) and two of its former top executives, Malhaz Pinhas Patarkazishvili (a/k/a Pini Peter) and Ran Amiran, with deceiving U.S. investors out of more than $100 million through fraudulent and unregistered online sales of risky securities known as binary options.
Latest Updates
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Italian Consob orders blackout of five new broker scams
Consob now announces almost every Monday the blackout of websites of illegally operating providers of financial services. This makes the Italian financial market supervisory authority the only EU regulator to take this effective measure. For consumer protection in the EU, it would be desirable if more member states would create a legal basis for blocking illegal or fraudulent websites. Today, the Italian watchdog announced that it ordered the black-out of five new websites that offer financial services illegally.
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The Monfex broker scam facilitated by RocketBit and CEX.IO
Spanish CNMV issued a warning against the broker scam Monfex (www.monfex.com). SWISS-SVG Holding Ltd and TENB Ltd operate the scam; both allegedly registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. As payment processors, we discovered the licensed Estonian RocketBit (www.rocketbit.io) and the Gibraltar-licensed CEX.IO. Besides that, credit and debit cards, as well as e-Payouts (www.e-payouts.com), are still available as payment options. The Monfex scam has been active since the beginning of 2019.
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Investor Warning – CiscoTrades facilitated by crypto payment processor BitTheBank
The problem with financial market regulators' warnings is that they usually come too late. Usually, their warnings are issued only after many investors have complained. Thus, scammers defraud consumers undisturbed for many months. This is also the case with CiscoTrades (www.ciscotrades.com). The broker scam has been active for several months, and only today the CNMV issued a warning. The scam is apparently already disappearing again. As a payment processor, we have once again discovered the Estonian BitTheBank.
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Spanish CNMV issues warning against PrimeBit crypto trading platform
Spanish regulator CNMV has issued a warning against the self-proclaimed P2P crypto trading platform PrimeBit (www.primebit.com). This is allegedly operated by PrimeBit Ltd, registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. There you can trade the USD against BTC, ETH, and LTC. Customers can only deposit Bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT) there. If you don't have any cryptocurrencies to deposit, the crypto exchange Changelly (www.changelly.com) is suggested for you to buy. PrimeBit seems to be a scam to us.
Payment Processors
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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.
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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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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.
Cybercrime Court Cases
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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.
Regulatory Updates
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Investor Warning – KadoCapital broker scam facilitated by Praxis Cashier
The KadoCapital scam attacks consumers in German and English with the Japanese approach with the slogan "The Art of Finance." The scam is actually a poorly done white label mutation. The UK FCA issued an investor warning against KadoCapital a few days ago. We have once again discovered Praxis Cashier by Amit Klatchko as a payment processor for credit and debit cards in our review. Allegedly, the scam is operated in the Commonwealth of Dominica.
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Daily Affiliate Warning – Celebrity campaign BitQT promotes broker scams TopMarkeCap and Hackford
Today we find an email from the famous German entertainer Thomas Gottschalk or at least from someone using his name. A fake celebrity campaign. Good, we already know that too. The email links us to his incredible story about the BitQT crypto trading platform. Finally, we land on the campaigns landing page where they are chasing victims for the broker scams TopMarketCap (www.topmarketcap.com) and Hackford (www.hackford.cc) today.
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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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