Illegal Payment Services | FinTelegram News

Category: Illegal Payment Services

April 18, 2021

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 In fact, this license is no longer valid as of September 2020.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.

April 17, 2021

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.

April 13, 2021

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.

April 12, 2021

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.

April 9, 2021

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.

April 5, 2021

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.

April 3, 2021

Investor warning – The Oliver Briggs broker scam for dummies

Every day dozens of new scam brokers emerge hunting for victims. The COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the online investment boom, is the best breeding ground for cybercrime organizations to produce cheap fraudulent broker brands big style in their white-label assembly lines. One of these scams is the Oliver Briggs scam (www.oliverbriggs.com), allegedly operated by Seaview Solutions Ltd, Marshall Islands. Via the BoxiPay cashier, we have once again found PayCent to be a payment facilitator.

April 3, 2021

R4I – Illegal Italian Payment Processor Elmo Color with ePayComfort

We have recently brought a report on the so-called TradeCabinet scams. Boiler rooms in the Balkans operate this scam network. This includes 3 FID Tech (3fidtech) in Tirana as well as Global-Tech and Comunico88 in Belgrade. The TradeCabinet CRM software is apparently used for the back-office processes of the attached scam brands. Processing deposits from customer victims is part of these back-office processes. We found the Italian digital marketing firm Elmo Color S.R.L.S. as an illegal payment processor in combination with ePayComfort. We would like to know more about these payment processors.

April 1, 2021

Daily Affiliate Warning – FXOffers promoting IGM Holdings, HQ Trade broker und FinoCapital scams

Today we received another nice email from [email protected] In the email, we are once again presented with a link to FXOffers (www.fxoffers.cc) and its fraudulent Elite Trading Club campaign. A video still promises that you can earn more than €15,000 daily without risk on the campaign page. The campaign promises to make you a millionaire. Got it, stupid? All you have to do is register. Today, victims are being sought via this fraudulent campaign for broker scams IGM Holdings, HQ Trade, and FinoCapital. Do not be one of these victims.

March 29, 2021

Daily Affiliate Warning – FXOffers fishing for victims for Investingstate broker scam

Currenlty, the fraudulent affiliate site FXOffers, promotes the broker scam Investingstate, a broker scam operated by Wooko Global Ltd, registered on the Marshall Islands. As payment processors of the scam, we have discovered iPayTotal, PayTechNo, and CryptoPayIn, operated by the licensed Estonian Navasu OÜ. The very same scammers operate Investingstate as the Broker Unity a/k/a BrokerUnity (www.brokerunity.com) and Interactive Trade (www.interactivetrade.com) scams.

March 29, 2021

Wanted – The Plutus broker scammers, its perpetrators, and facilitators

Yes, the Plutus broker scam is still active and continues to scam consumers and small investors! And yes, these scammers stole millions! We reported about it a few days ago. Until around May 2020, the scam worked with Praxis Cashier and accepted credit cards and later switched to cryptocurrency payments only. Until recently, the scam operated by ITM Solutions LLC processed payments via BitTheBank and XchangePro of the licensed Estonian crypto payment processors Lipan Services OÜ and BlueData OÜ, respectively. We are trying to track down the operators.

March 28, 2021

Investor Warning – Illegal broker ChamberFX with payment facilitator iPayTotal

We have recently received several complaints from victims of the ChamberFX (www.chamberfx.com) broker scam. According to its website, the scam is allegedly operated by Chamber (Holdings) Pty Ltd in Australia, which has a license from ASCI for Australia. We doubt that this company is actually the operator of ChamberFX but rather a clone. In the terms, UK is stated as applicable law, where this clone might be operated. As a payment processor, we have discovered iPayTotal,.