Spanish regulator CNMV issued a warning against the TradeCentrix broker scam yesterday. The website does not provide any information about the operator. The phone number provided on the website is also associated with the OpaBitcoin and auroxtrade broker scams. As a payment facilitator for credit/debit cards, we found Israeli-Cypriot BridgerPay. You should stay far away and protect your financial health and their data.
Vantage Prime Group LLC d/b/a VantageMarkets (VantageMarkets.co.uk) is regulated in the UK by the FCA. In addition, the VantageMarkets scheme runs offshore entities through which it performs onboarding of clients in the EEA region, in violation of the regulatory requirements of the FCA and ESMA regulators. Italian Consob has ordered the black-out of the VantageMarkets. Recently, Spanish CNMV issued another warning. We have assigned a Red Compliance rating to the Vantage Group.
Yesterday we, as registered clients, received an email from the offshore broker CMX Markets. In it, we were informed that various bad reviews about the broker had appeared. However, the broker informs us that these are not serious reviews. The fact is that CMX Markets operates without regulatory permission through companies in the Marshall Islands and Moldova. In this respect, we have placed the broker on our Red Compliance list.
FinTelegram is known and hated primarily for its critical reviews. In this respect, we may (somewhat) disappoint this expectation with our new review of Moneta Markets by David Bily. We have upgraded the broker's compliance rating from red to orange, honoring the regulatory actions taken in recent months and the positive customer feedback. However, some of the broker's key target markets are still covered without regulatory permissions. Here is our updated review.
VT Markets is an Australian broker scheme that also allows the onboarding of retail clients in EEA jurisdictions via offshore entities. VT Markets offers maximum leverage of 1:500. Until mid-2022, VT Markets was part of the Vantage Group and still operates with the same solution. In fact, VT Markets is a 1:1 implementation of VantageMarkets with different branding. Payabl and BridgerPay are the main payment facilitator of the scheme, which has already received regulatory warnings.
Vantage Prime Group LLC d/b/a VantageMarkets (VantageMarkets.co.uk) is regulated in the UK by the FCA. In addition, the VantageMarkets scheme runs offshore entities through which it performs onboarding of clients in the EEA region, in violation of the regulatory requirements of the FCA and ESMA regulators. The Italian Consob has ordered the black-out of the VantageMarkets offshore broker website (VantageMarkets.com). It is not the first regulatory warning. Be very careful when dealing with this broker scheme.
Over the last couple of months, we issued several warnings against the broker scam soltechX, operated by the offshore entity Maxx LLC, registered in St. Vincent & The Grenadines. This entity has also operated other scams. As payment facilitators, we found the notorious BridgerPay, PayPound, and PayStudio. The boiler rooms behind soltechX and related scams are in Ukraine and Serbia. Max LLC is related to Cubic Services Ltd, another offshore scam operator with boiler rooms in Ukraine and Serbia. Stay far away and protect your financial health.
The Cypriot financial scene is apparently at war. FinTelegram has been reporting on many of the CySEC brokers and FinTechs for years, pointing out that, unfortunately, many scams and investment fraud sites are also operated or facilitated by companies from Cyprus. Recently, the Cyprus Insider Twitter (@InsiderCyprus) has been revealing interesting points. Moreover, there are apparently also extortion campaigns currently running in the Cyprus scene. Here is the update. We would like to learn more.
Moneta Markets is a trading name of Moneta LLC, St. Vincent & The Grenadines. In Australia, Moneta Markets is acting as an authorized representative of AGC Capital Securities Pty Ltd, regulated by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC). In South Africa, the scheme is an authorized Financial Service Provider regulated by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA). However, it does not have regulatory permission for EEA jurisdictions and violates regulatory rules.
We've heard for years from BridgerPay founder Ran Cohen and other operators of unregulated payment gateways and payment processors that they didn't need to adhere to any regulatory requirements. Cohen recently argued again on Facebook that only PCI regulations would apply to BridgerPay. This is simply false. In all jurisdictions, we know of, facilitating criminal activity intentionally or negligently is punishable by law for any person or organization regardless of regulatory provisions.
FinTelegram has been active as a financial intelligence platform for about four years, specializing primarily in investor protection and financial cybercrime. Since FinTelegram's inception, Ran Cohen's Israeli-Cypriot payment platform provider BridgerPay has come to light as a facilitator in dozens of scams. The CyberFinance rating agency PayRate42 also placed BridgerPay on its Red Compliance list. And was berated and defamed by Cohen in a Facebook post for doing so.
In April 2022, we warned against the broker scam soltechX, operated by the offshore entity Maxx LLC, registered in St. Vincent & The Grenadines. This entity has also operated other scams. As payment facilitators, we found the notorious BridgerPay, PayPound, and PayStudio. The boiler rooms behind soltechX and related scams are in Ukraine and Serbia. Max LLC is related to Cubic Services Ltd, another offshore scam operator with boiler rooms in Ukraine and Serbia.