Tag: RoyalsFX

Phoenix Payments Ltd d/b/a Paytah, registered in Malta and regulated by the MFSA, is currently at the center of regulatory and criminal investigations in several European jurisdictions. In addition, Paytah is facing claims from scam victims who made deposits to various scams through Paytah and its affiliates. The European Fund Recovery Initiative (EFRI) represented the interests of victims at an obscure Financial Ombudsman hearing in Malta. Franklin Cachia of CSB Group represented Paytah. Cachia is currently the company's contracted compliance officer.

Malta is greylisted for good reasons, mostly for their failing regulators. Malta-licensed, Phoenix Payments Ltd d/b/a Paytah, refuses to assist the many victims who wired money to the company to top their accounts with broker scams like RoyalsFX, LincolnFX, or CodeFX. Victims reported these transactions to the MFSA. The regulator replied that they would not investigate and asked the victims to report Paytah to the Central Bank of Malta, which replied that it would not investigate such complaints. The victims also emailed Kenneth Farrugia, the Director of Malta Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, who did not reply.

Paytah is operated by Phoenix Payments Ltd, a company registered in Malta and regulated by MFSA. As reported by FinTelegram, PayTah has facilitated vast broker scams, including LincolnFX, RoyalsFX, CodexFX between 2019 and 2020. Victims of these scams have provided the European Fund Recovery Initiative (EFRI) with the Power of Attorney to recover their funds. Via its Maltese lawyer EFRI has taken actions to recover the victims' funds from Paytah. Currently, the Maltese connection is chasing after the Paytah people.

Payment processors must comply with the applicable KYC and AML regulations. Especially when onboarding new merchants and monitoring their transactions. Recently, we reported that the high-risk payment processor Phoenix Payments Ltd d/b/a Paytah (www.paytah.com). Paytah is to be held liable for this but has so far refused to accept its responsibility for intentionally or grossly negligently supporting the scams and refuses to provide any assistance to the victims.

Phoenix Payments Ltd provides payments services d/b/a as Paytah. Between 2019 and 2020, the payment processor has been processing hundreds of thousands of euros from victims of LincolnFX, RoyalsFX, CodexFX, and other scams. The legal entities behind these scams have been clients of Paytah. The company directors are the Italian Marco Lavanna, the Maltese Keith Farrugia, and Spaniard Francesc Xavier Alabart Lopez. The payment processor's beneficial owner is payment veteran Marco Lavanna through his Swiss-registered firm named Fenice Holding SA.

Whistleblowers provided documents proving that Lithuanian registered e-money institution (EMI) GlobalNetint UAB is involved in numerous scams as a payment processor. This is for example extensively documented in the "Maxigrid Case" with the associated scams RoyalsFX and LincolnFX. The CySEC-regulated Maxigrid itself has processed payments from victims of scams via its bank accounts with GlobalNetint.

Since we started our reports about the RoyalsFX Scam and described the background and processes, victims of other scams like LincolnFX or Trade99 have come forward. In addition, based on our reports and findings, victims identified similar processes in other scams. And as was the case with RoyalsFX, crypto payment processors suddenly vanished. Let's take Trade99 and BTCwithdraw as another example.

In the last weeks, we have invested considerable time and resources in the Scams RoyalsFX and LincolnFX. These scams have been facilitated by different payment processors to defraud clients in crypto and FIAT. These scams and many more are part of the scam network of the Joshua Group.

CySEC is the financial supervisory authority of the Republic of Cyprus and a sort of gatekeeper for the EU financial markets. Cyprus has developed into the single most important gateway to EU financial markets for non-EU citizens and organizations. The Israeli financial scene in particular makes intensive use of this gateway. But also Russian individuals and companies enter the EU financial markets via Cyprus. The CySEC is controversial within the EU regulators because of its "relaxed" approach.