Tag: Rodeler

The Georgia-born Israeli Gery Shalon has been a prominent figure in the world of cybercrime, especially after being labeled as the alleged mastermind behind some of the most significant hacks on the US financial system in the early 2010s. Shalon was also the mastermind behind Gal Barak's cybercrime organization. He allegedly made a deal with the U.S. prosecution and snitched on his former partners.

Giambrone & Partners, a law firm with a strong track record in financial fraud litigation, is currently involved in a group litigation against Rodeler Ltd, a CySEC-regulated investment firm trading as 24Option. Allegedly, Rodeler violated numerous regulations, pressuring inexperienced investors into risky trades later identified as fraudulent. Consequently, the FCA prohibited 24Option from conducting regulated or marketing activities in the UK.

German law enforcement agents in Cologne have been investigating boiler room operator Rodeler DE GmbH, which operated CySEC-regulated broker 24option, since at least 2018. In this regard, law enforcement actions had already taken place in Israel in August 2021. Among other things, Israeli law enforcement agents raided offices of PandaTS and seized extensive data. On December 21, 2021, law enforcement announced that two former managers of the German boiler room were arrested.

Cyprus Investment Firms (CIF) regulated by CySEC are a problem for the security of the European financial markets. The CySEC CIFs work with illegal offshore mutations, fraudulent marketing campaigns, and target consumers and retail investors in the EU. Now the UK watchdog FCA has banned CySEC-regulated Finteractive Ltd d/b/a FXVC from UK clients. After Brexit, FXVC was allowed to operate under the Temporary Permission Regime (TPR) with the CySEC license in the UK.

The difference between the US regulators and their EU counterparts could not be greater. While the SEC and CFTC have implemented whistleblower programs and act as the advocates of retail investors, the EU regulators leave the victims rather alone in the fight against scammers and online fraudsters.

For several weeks now, the Forex and CFD brokers Rodeler and F1Markets regulated by the Cypriot regulator CySEC have been keeping us busy. More and more whistleblowers are reporting irregularities and worrying details of their business practices. In December 2019, the Italian regulator CONSOB has already banned the luge athletes and their brands from Italy and thus revoked the EU Licence Passporting. Recently the UK FCA has also taken this step for luge, F1Markets, Hoch Capital, and Magnum FX (Cyprus). This forced CySEC to take measures and to order a temporary suspension.

The decision of the UK regulator FCA to revoke the passporting for the CySEC regulated forex and CFD brokers Rodeler, F1Markets, Hoch Capital, and Magnum FX (Cyprus) for the UK market cannot be overestimated. Up to now, the individual EU regulators have been rather cuddly and, in the case of problems with notoriously weak regulators such as CySEC, have relied on the excuse of a lack of competence.

For many months, law enforcement agencies as well as regulators in different jurisdictional regimes in the EU have been...