Tag: GNI

The FCA-regulated e-money institution MoneyNetInt had its best time during the binary options hype. Most of the binary options scheme providers were Israelis, and, as it turns out, almost all of them were scam schemes. Many of them were clients of MoneyNetInt, such as IC Option, TitanTrade, or the schemes of Uwe Lenhoff and Gal Barak. As of 2017, binary options were banned in most regulatory regimes. Since then, MoneyNetInt's business might not be doing so well either, as their latest figures suggest. Here is an update.

In June 2021, the Lithuanian-Israeli e-Money Institution GlobalNetInt (GNI), related to the FCA-regulated MoneyNetint Group, was penalized by the Bank of Lithuania for its violations of anti-money laundering and terrorist activities financing rules. GNI has to pay €350,000 because it did not properly assess the risk posed by customers and did not always ensure that customer identification remotely complied with legal requirements. GNI has been a notorious scam facilitator and is now doing business as payswix.

FinTelegram has issued several warnings against the notorious scam and cybercrime facilitator Epayblock, an e-Money Institution regulated by the Bank of Lithuania (BoL). Finally, the regulator announced that it revoked the license of Epayblock due to money laundering issues. The regulator said that it received complaints and information about Epayblock customers potentially using its services for fraud. It initiated the investigation and obtained court permission to apply temporary restrictions on the provision of services to its customers.

A penalty is usually not an occasion for gratitude. That would also make the purpose of a punishment absurd. Usually, one is grateful for a received punishment only if one is aware that one has gotten away well with this punishment and should actually have been punished much worse. A driver who is speeding while massively impaired by alcohol or other drugs certainly grateful is grateful if he is punished by the police only for speeding and not for the offense of driving under the influence (DUI). Similarly, GlobalNetInt (GNI) shows itself grateful for the penalization by the Bank of Lithuania.

The Lithuanian-Israeli e-Money Institution GlobalNetInt, part of the FCA-regulated MoneyNetint Group, was fined by the Bank of Lithuania for its violations of anti-money laundering and terrorist activities financing rules. GNI has to pay €350,000 because it did not properly assess the risk posed by customers and did not always ensure that customer identification remotely complied with legal requirements. GNI, focused on high-risk clients, does not rely on information from a reliable and independent source when verifying the documents and information on beneficiaries. No surprise here!

The Lithuanian Liudvikas Kulikauskas is the co-founder, CEO, and shareholder of GlobalNetInt (GNI), an e-Money Institution regulated by the Bank of Lithuania. Additionally, he and his wife Egle Kulikauskiene launched the payment processor Ifind MB d/b/a Findiban, which was apparently positioned as a high-risk payment processor, offering businesses a range of financial services, including SEPA IBAN account, white-label FinTech services, or credit card processing. Currently, the Findiban website is in maintenance mode and hence down.

Over the years, we have learned that public (open) investigations evolve. Typically, after publishing initial reports or Requests 4 Information (R4I), we receive additional information from whistleblowers and victims. With the new information, we continuously update the reports. Therefore, it has often seemed like a mosaic of information for our readers to piece together. We try to avoid this Mosaic Approach in the future. Therefore, here is a new-form update on the licensed Estonian crypto payment processor Woodstocks OÜ d/b/a Coinmond and FMA Crypto.

In our researches on scam-facilitating payment processors, Finolita Unio UAB, regulated by the Bank of Lithuania with authorization code LB000490, came to our attention only once as a payment facilitator in the GlobalSpotFX scam with the Estonian Woodstock OÜ (report here). The Financial Times reports that Finolita Unio is part of Senjo Group, a former Wirecard partner through which hundreds of millions have flowed and vanished. More than €100M have been processed through its Lithuanian subsidiary.

Liudvikas Kulikauskas, founder, CEO, and shareholder of GlobalNetInt UAB (GNI), an e-Money Institution (EMI) regulated by the Bank of Lithuania with authorization code LB000434, has founded a payment processor Ifind MB d/b/a Findiban (www.findiban.com), together with his wife, Egle Kulikauskiene. The company is apparently positioned as a high-risk payment processor, offering businesses a range of financial services, including SEPA IBAN account, white-label FinTech services, or credit card processing.

We have recently reported on the GlobalMarkets (a/k/a Glob Markets) broker scam, which has been highly active over the last few years but seems to be disappearing. The scam was operated under various domains by Cubic Services Ltd, Seychelles. Numerous regulators have warned against the scam and the operator since 2019. Despite these public warnings, how could the scam still steal customer funds? If you follow the money trail, you again end up with MoneyNetint Group (MNI) and its GlobalNetInt (GNI) in Lithuania.

MoneyNetint, the FCA-regulated Israeli e-Money institution around Yishay Trif and Raphael Golan, announced a new payment service for merchants doing business with Brazil. Together with Banco Rendimento in Sao Paulo, a clearing system based on the RippleNet blockchain is to be launched. This is intended to enable payments to Brazilian companies and individuals to be made without friction and at low cost. The system is compatible with the Brazilian instant payment system PIX, MoneyNetint claims in its blog post.

FinTelegram readers are not new to our opinion that payment processors are responsible for many scams and damaged victims. Without payment processors knowingly and willingly participating, 99% of the scams would not be possible in the first place. One of these payment processors is the Estonian Pradexx operating with one of those worthless FIU crypto licenses. Today we found Pradexx again as a scam facilitator in iTradeFX, against which the FMA has issued an investor warning.