Next court defeat for the now-closed Dutch payment processor Payvision. The founder, Rudolf Booker, positioned Payvision as a laundromat for scammers and operators of porn and gambling sites. In 2018, ING acquired Payvision with a valuation of €350 million. Booker had to leave in April 2020. Andre Valkenburg became the new CEO and continued running Payvision as Booker did. Valkenburg sued against this claim and lost.
We had already been expecting this for a few weeks. Since the Dutch banking giant ING announced in October 2021 that it would phase out Payvision, it was clear that at some point, quietly and secretly, the high-risk payment processor founded by Rudolf Booker would disappear. For ING, Payvision, acquired in 2018 under then-CEO Ralph Hamers for a reported €400 million, was a huge financial and reputational flop. Court documents to CEO Andre Valkenburg can no longer be served!
The Dutch authorities and media now target ING and its subsidiary Payvision. The financial newspaper FD yesterday published another report about the investigation of the Dutch regulator DNB and the alleged financial criminal activities of Payvision. Its CEO Rudolf Booker is said to have personally given instructions to work with scammers such as Gal Barak and Uwe Lenhoff. Payvision executive Andre Valkenburg recently lied in court filings and claimed he would know of no investigations.
The Dutch Andre Valkenburg became Payvision CEO as of 1.5.2020 after the founders and directors Rudolf Booker, Gijs van de Weegh, and Cheng Liem Chi resigned after the company was acquired by ING in 2018. According to (checked) information available to FinTelegram, he is still the managing director of Payvision, which ING ordered to go out of business. According to some US lawsuits, he is also said to have continued Payvision's high-risk business during his CEO tenure.
The Dutch high-risk payment processor Payvision is deeply involved in the swamp of broker scams around the Vienna Cybercrime Trials. It allegedly wilfully and knowingly facilitated broker fraud and money laundering. The presumption of innocence applies. Today's announcement of a partnership with the global hospitality platform Selina has to be appreciated. The idea is to provide Selina clients with ultimate payment experiences while traveling. Not an easy business model in the COVID-19 pandemic but hello, positive news though.
EFRI was founded in 2018 by FinTelegram together with auditors, lawyers, and victims of scams. The NGO initiated a mass movement with more than 1,000 registered victims and members. EFRI represents the interests of victims towards scammers and their facilitators. The Dutch FinTech Payvision was one of them. EFRI even goes so far as to call Payvision the Wirecard of the Netherlands.
Without the collaboration of payment processors, scam operations and online fraud schemes would be very difficult if not impossible. Currently, EFRI, co-founded by FinTelegram, is fighting with the Dutch FinTech Payvision for restitution payments to the victims of scams of Uwe Lenhoff and Gal Barak who has been found guilty of investment fraud and money-laundering in the Vienna Cybercrime Trials ("#VCT").