Author: Ben Givon
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Notorious high-risk payment processor iPaytotal launches unregulated Estonian CryptoMatix
Until recently, Aditya Williams was the registered director of the Estonian iPayTotal OÜ but was replaced in March 2021 by the Estonian nominee director Monika Sild. Currently, iPaytotal does not have a license from the Estonian FIU to operate a crypto payment platform. Nevertheless, the company is the operator of CryptoMatix, which Ruchi Rathor apparently set up. However, it seems that iPayTotal OÜ may try to obtain an FIU crypto license to get more involved in the crypto payment segment.
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Italian Consob has ordered the black-out of five more scam websites
Sure, scammers launch most likely a few dozen new websites every single day. Thus, closing down five per week doesn't sound too impressive, but it's a start. Like every week, the Italian regulator Consob announced the blackout of five new websites of illegally operating financial services providers. Consob is the only EU regulator to take this effective measure. It would be desirable if more member states would create a legal basis for blocking illegal or fraudulent websites. Forza Italia!
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Daily Affiliate Alert – Fraudulent Bitcoin Worldwide campaign promotes broker scams
Today we receive an email in which we are informed that there would still be a credit balance of more than €1,800 on our account. They had already tried to contact us several times to let us have our money! Within 48 hours, they would delete the account if we did not contact them. OK, let's have a look. The link in the email takes us to the BITCOIN WORLDWIDE campaign, where we are promised a bitcoin bonus. Then we are redirected to the YuanPay Group (www.yuanpay-system.com) site, which finally redirects us to payment pages of various scam brokers.
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Tradixa broker scam facilitated by Jubiter, Paysend, and PandaTS
A few weeks ago, we warned against the broker scam Tradixa, operating with different domains. Currently, www.tradixa.net is the active domain of the scam allegedly operated by Tradixa Ltd, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and All Media EOOD, Bulgaria. The facilitating payment processors back then have been Praxis Cashier and ePay. While Praxis Cashier evidently terminated Tradixa, we have been able to establish that Estonian-Slovakian Jubiter and Spanish Paysend also facilitated the broker scam.
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GlobalNetInt, Converta, and the StoxMarket connection
The Romanian CONVERTA DIGITAL MARKET S.R.L. (CONVERTA) is an authorized agent working for the Lithuanian EMI GlobalNetInt UAB (GNI), which the Bank of Lithuania regulates with the authorization code LB000434. CONVERTA has its registered office in Bucharest. There is nothing special about the Romanian payment processor except one former beneficial owner: at the time of the conclusion of the agent agreement with GNI, the Israeli Mordechay Litke was (or maybe still is) one of them. And he was one of the scammers behind StoxMarket et al.
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Investor Alert – Investors Center and Trading Academy 360 facilitate broker scams big style
Scams are facilitated by fraudulent marketing campaigns and malicious payment processors. Take the Triton Capital Markets broker, for example. The scam, allegedly operated by Karello D Buro LLC, registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, has been warned against by the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) on February 18, 2021 (report here). However, it has been facilitated by Investors Center, Trading Academy 360, and Praxis Cashier. Here are a few more details.
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Breaking News – Criminal complaints against Payvision and its founders
Payvision and its founder and former CEO Rudolf Booker are already subjects of the criminal proceedings in Germany and Austria. Uwe Lenhoff, the alleged mastermind of a cybercrime organization, was arrested in January 2019. He was a personal friend of Booker and used Payvision for his dirty business. Rudolf Booker was introduced to Lenhoff by Amsterdam real estate investor Dirk-Jan Bakker, a partner of Lenhoff, who was found dead in his prison cell in July 2020. Criminal charges have now been filed against Payvision and its founders for money laundering and investment fraud.
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Daily Affiliate Warning – Fake CryptoEngine promotes CoinsTrades scam facilitated by BridgerPay
Today, an incoming junk email promises us that we won't have to worry about money problems anymore. It leads us to a fake article in a major German newspaper cheering about the CryptoEngine, allegedly operated by Facebook, with which one could earn up to $2900 per day. Invented by Mark Zuckerberg. Sure thing, right? Who then actually wants to sign up ends up at the broker scam CoinsTrades (www.coinstrades.com).
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Italian Consob orders blackout of five new illegal financial services
Like every Monday, the Italian regulator Consob today announced the blackout of five new 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. Forza Italia!
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Fraudulent BitQT campaign chasing victims for Finexico scam facilitated by Paytechno et al
A new email in our junk folder from james@etradelead.com. It leads us first again to the already well-known fake article on LPONLINE or TopOnTechBiz. From there, we move on to the fraudulent BitQT campaign on Amazing Offers and Bitcoin Revolution to the broker scam Finexico, which was until recently operated as Finexics and Finotive by Harmonte Group LLC, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and SLN Development LTD in Cyprus. This network operates white label scams on the running bank. We have already reported about it.
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Daily Affiliate Warning – Fake News article promotes Lottery Heroes scheme facilitated by Praxis Cashier
Another email from Jason Voghel and the email address support@leadgengo.com. Oh yes, from Jason Voghel, we get a lot of emails from various email addresses. Today we are promised "Big Money" if we activate our account. The link in the email takes us to a fake EUROMONEY article on the Russian site https://lhfrist.ru. The article hails getting rich via the Lottery Heroes scheme. One is also led to thelottery betting site Lottery Heroes (www.lotteryheroes.com) if one wants to sign up for the new riches.