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We have warned several times in recent months about the offshore broker Pocket Option a/k/a PocketOption or PO Trade, which was previously on our Red Compliance list. One of our readers brought to our attention that there are warnings against PocketOption from regulators worldwide. The offshore broker scheme is on the warning lists from the U.S. over Brazil and Europe to Malaysia. We have therefore downgraded PocketOption and placed it on our black compliance list.
Key Data PocketOption
| Trading names | PocketOption Pocket Option PO Trade |
| Business activity | Unauthorized offshore CFD broker |
| Domains | https://pocketoption.com https://pocketoptiontrader.com https://po.trade https://p.finance https://platform44.po2.capital https://po.life/en https:´//po.cash |
| Legal entity | Infinite Trade LLC Gembell Limited PO TRADE LTD PO TRADE (SV) LTD |
| Jurisdiction | Marshall Islands, SVG St. Lucia, Costa Rica |
| Authorization | PO Trade Ltd is registered with the Mwali International Services Authority |
| Payment options | Credit/debit card, e-wallets, crypto |
| Payment processors | BrightCart (brightcart.io) RePayFor (https://repayfor.com) OnePayWays (onepayways.com) CheckoutFX (https://checkoutfx.com) Jeton, Perfect Money, Advcash, Binance Pay, SettlePay (https://settlepay.net) ChangeCoins (https://changecoins.io) Virtualpay (https://evirtual.com) |
| Related individual | Evgenii Kalashnikov |
| Trustpilot | 3.9-star rating with a “Great” trust level |
| Compliance rating | Red |
| Warnings | FCA, Consob, AMF, FSMA, CNMV, CFTC, CVM Brazil, SC Malaysia, CSA Canada |
The PocketOption Narrative
PocketOption and PO Trade claim to be regulated by the fake regulator IFMRRC. For a few weeks, the PocketOption scheme has been operated by Infiniti Trade LLC, a company registered in Costa Rica. PO Trade Ltd is registered with the offshore regulator Mwali International Services Authority.
We have identified Evgenii Kalashnikov, a Russian, as the CEO and beneficial owner behind PO Tade Ltd (link).
PocketOption and PO Trade attract clients via generous bonuses of up to 50% of deposits. And on top of that, they offer additional motivational gifts for deposits – the usual tricks but very professionally done.
The two offshore broker schemes have impressive dimensions. In the last 28 days before 19 July 2023, their websites attracted almost 3.7 million visitors, according to Similarweb. While the PocketOption attracts most visitors (around 115.7%) from the U.S., PO Trade addresses the United Arab Emirates (around 32%) and EEA. But also at PO Trade, more than 8% of the visitors came from the U.S. in June 2023.
Through the domains PocketOptionTrader.com and PO2.capital, mainly Russian clients are recruited.
Payment Processors
Besides credit cards and e-wallets, traders can also make deposits with crypto. The payment processors for the offshore broker schemes are the usual suspects. Russian e-wallet operators Perfect Money and Advcash are represented as well as Binance Pay for crypto deposits.
When depositing via Binance Pay, the schemes misrepresent themselves to Binance Pay, claiming to be an ice cream seller in the food sector (see screenshot right).
One of the payment processors for credit and debit cards is BrightCart, based in Cyprus. In January, almost all the traffic of BrightCart websites (BrightCart.io or Checkout.BrightCart.io) came from the PocketOption scheme (Source: Similarweb).
BrightCart‘s website traffic has dramatically dropped over the last few months. From around 234,000 in October 2022, the drop has been to less than 20,000 in January 2023. PocketOption is the dominating traffic driver here.
Compliance Check
The two brokers, apparently controlled by Russians, have no regulatory permission to offer their financial products. The UK FCA has issued two investor warnings against PocketOption. There are nine warnings against the offshore broker scheme from regulators worldwide (see list above). This is almost record-breaking.
We are, therefore, downgrading PocketOption to our Black Compliance list.
Share Information
We would like to know more about the operators of these two broker schemes and their facilitators. If you have any information, we would appreciate it if you could share it with us via our whistleblower system, Whistle42.
