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.
As reported by FinTelegram, The Financial Times reported that German prosecutors suspect that more than €100M was stolen from Wirecard via the licensed Lithuanian e-Money Institution (EMI) Finolita Unio. Via this fintech, at least €35M was said to have flowed to fugitive ex-Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek and another €65M to the now insolvent company oCap in Singapore. Today, the Bank of Lithuania announced that the license of Finolita Unio had been revoked for violations of money laundering rules.
The Trade Com Racket is believed to have a headquarters in Albania. JPM Capitals, ProfxCredit, FMA Crypto, Coinmond, GlobalSpotFX, Spotfinex, FXonspot, and TopEuroFX are part of the racket. In January and August 2020, the UK FCA issued investor warnings against the FXonspot scam; in September 2020, the Spanish CNMV followed. The racket offers the trading app TopEuroFX for free download in the Google store. As facilitating payment processors, we have recently discovered Payecards, the Estonian Woodstock OÜ, the UK Cashaa Technologies Ltd, and Net Kantor.
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.
Digital currencies are the future in one way or another. For a few months now, online payment pioneer PayPal has also been accepting bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. Estonia is currently the epicenter of European crypto payment processors. As of mid-2020, the Estonian FIU had issued more than 3,000 licenses (report here). Unfortunately, many of them are used to facilitate scams and illegal payment services. We have drafted a list of Estonian crypto payment companies that have come to our attention in scams.
We have recently discovered the licensed Estonian crypto payment processor Woodstock OÜ as a payment processor in the Trade Com scams network with GlobalSpotFX, Spotfinex, FXonspot, or TopEuroFX. These scams' victims deposited money through Woodstock's bank accounts with Lithuanian financial institutions Finolita Unio UAB, GlobalNetInt UAB, the Maltese Secure Trading Financial Services Limited, and crypto exchanges. Woodstock is controlled by Marianna Charalampous and does not even have a functioning website.
GlobalSpotFX, Spotfinex, FXonspot, and TopEuroFX are associated with a Trade Com Limited, which does not appear to exist. In January and August 2020, the UK FCA issued investor warnings against the FXonspot scam; in September 2020, the Spanish CNMV. Until recently, the Google App Store offered the Spotfinex trading app. This has been renamed TopEuro FX (www.topeurofx.com) and is still available for download. As facilitating payment processors, we have discovered Payecards and Estonian Woodstock OÜ with the Lithuanian e-Money Institution Finolita Unio.