On 20 June 2022, Italian regulator Consob ordered the black-out of seven illegal financial websites increasing the total number of black-out orders to 720. Against three of the scams, the Consob ordered to be blacked out FinTelegram has already issued warnings against some of the operators – Tetris Group, Eudaimon Consulting, and FX Publications. Both of them have been around for years already and received warnings from different financial market regulators! It would be desirable if other regulators were also empowered by their parliament to block access to illegal websites.
The Italian Consob issued orders to blackout six websites illegally offering financial services. This brings the total number of websites blacked out since July 2019 to 623. Regulators in other regimes can only issue warnings against illegal providers. Consob can order Internet providers to block their websites for the Italian market. It would be desirable if other regulators were authorized by their legislators to issue such blackouts. This would be an important step in the fight against cybercrime and scams.
The Vita Impex scam network has an impressive dark record. In April 2021, the Italian Consob ordered the black-out of the websites of VitaFX and Pluton500 operated by Vita Impex. In May and December 2021, the Spanish CNMV and Consob issued warnings against AceTop Financial. On January 6, 2022, the UK FCA followed. Vita Impex Ltd is one of the AceTop Financial operators, besides other fake companies presented on the website.
On December 20, 2021, Consob issued a warning against 15 financial websites operating illegally. On December 27, the Italian regulator noted that a black-out order was also issued against the websites of these providers. In addition, Consob has issued a black-out order against the websites of seven other illegal providers. This brings the total number of websites blocked by the regulator to date to 600. Below is the list of the new blackouts.
Like the COVID-19 virus, the scam virus is spreading across the internet with a logarithmic growth. The FCA issued an investor warning on November 9, 2020, against BeforexCapital and Capital Holding Funds allegedly operated by Capital Holdings LLC, St. Vincent & the Grenadines. As payment processors, we have discovered Praxis Cashier with the Estonian crypto exchange MisterBit.