Tag: Ran Cohen

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.

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.

The Equiti Group is a global Forex and CFD broker regulated by the Jordan Securities Commission, the FSA Seychelles, and the FCA in the UK. However, Equiti illegally offers a 1:500 leverage also to European clients. BridgerPay is a VISA-registered Merchant Servicer and the operator of an AI-powered payment platform. In November 2020, Equity reported a 30% increase in global deposit approvals with BridgerPay. Today, Gareth Bateman, Global Head of Payments, praised BridgerPay for its services on LinkedIn.

Recently we reported about BridgerPay's new search engine, Bridger Connections. Merchants can search for suitable payment processors for free, which is an attractive offer, especially for high-risk merchants. However, the quality and compliance of the integrated payment processors are apparently not checked by BridgerPay. As with the high-risk payment processor EU Paymentz which does not provide the required information about the legal entities on its website and is on PayRate42's "Red Compliance" list.

Israeli-Cypriot payment orchestrator BridgerPay launched Bridger Connections, a free search engine for merchants to help them find the perfect payment processors for their businesses. The search engine includes many but not all providers we know of. Some of them are already integrated into the BridgerPay gateway and some of them are built on demand where BridgerPay offers to put the merchants in contact with the payment processors. An introductory webinar will be held on September 29, 2022.

It is no secret that EU member state Cyprus is the center of the global Israeli financial industry, including forex schemes and the high-risk payment segment. Just over an hour's flight from Tel Aviv, Cyprus is a tax haven for Israeli entrepreneurs off their shores and the front door to the European Union's common market. That's why FinTech entrepreneur Ran Cohen has established his BridgerPay in Limassol, Cyprus, for example. His wife Linor Cohen runs several real estate companies and helps Israeli compatriots find real estate and tax savings in Cyprus.

BridgerPay recently announced the closing of a $6 million financing SIBF and has scheduled the Future of Payments event in Limassol for May 25, 2022. Just in time for this globally broadcast event, BridgerPay has announced Laoura Salveta engagement as Head of Marketing. According to her LinkedIn profile, Laora comes from the Forex field and therefore has experience in financial marketing. Most recently, she served as Chief Marketing Officer and Director at 120advertising.com in Cyprus.

The Cyprus-based Israeli payment processor BridgerPay of Ran Cohen successfully raised 6 million in a seed finance round led by the Nati Harpaz and the Southern Israel Bridging Fund (SIBF). According to Calcalista, the round included $2 million in secondary deals. In 2019, the former forex entrepreneur Ran Cohen teamed up with veteran systems architect and payments expert Yaron Hersh to set up BridgerPay. In 2020, Nati Harpaz joined the company. Since then, the company grew organically, and only now it has decided to raise funds to develop its business.

TradeVtech is part of a vast scam network attacking European consumers. FinTelegram has issued several warnings against them. Currently, the scam is operated by Universal Services LLC and UMedia LLC, registered in St Vincent & The Grenadines. We uncovered BridgerPay as the scam-facilitating payment processer. In July 2021, the UK FCA issued a warning against TradeVtech; the Austrian FMA followed in Aug 2021, as did New Zealand FMA in Oct 2021. As of 21 April 2022, the scam is still active, still facilitated by BridgerPay.

The Spanish regulator CNMV has issued a warning against the broker scam GoldenGates a/k/a GoldenGates Global on March 22, 2022. The website does not provide any information about the operators. It only refers to the Marshall Islands as the relevant jurisdiction. In addition, an address and two phone numbers in the UK are given. The only payment processor we discovered is the Cypriot-Israeli BridgerPay by Ran Cohen. Stay far away from this scam.

Lately, we reported that the German BaFin has announced investigations against the scam broker Soloprime (https://soloprime.co) attacking consumers in English, Italian, and German. The Austrian FMA issued another warning against the scam. The website does not provide information about the operators or the competent jurisdiction. However, we are sure that the Cypriot-Israeli high-risk payment processor BridgerPay of Ran Cohen has this information. The VISA merchant service provider facilitated the scam with API and card processing services until recen