Compliance | FinTelegram News

Category: Compliance

February 12, 2021

Austrian FMA warns against AppleTrade broker scam with GumBallPay

The Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) has recently issued a warning against the scam broker AppleTrade operated under the domains www.appletrade.de and www.appletrade.io by Appletrade Ltd. No further information about the legal entity or persons can be found on the website. As a payment provider for credit and debit card payments, we have discovered the Israeli high-risk payment processor GumBallPay.

February 9, 2021

BaFin’s Cease and Desist Order against illegal payment processor Egramming is final

The illegal German payment processors are very popular among the worldwide scammer community. Companies like B2G of Rainer Treuer and his Russian partner Oleg Shvartsman have processed tens of millions of scammers like Gal Barak or Uwe Lenhoff and contributed to the fraud of tens of thousands of small investors. In October 2020, BaFin issued a Cease and Desist Order against the German Egramming, which allegedly facilitated the crypto scam Capital Coin Exchange, among others. The order is final now!

February 8, 2021

UK Watchdog FCA warns against PrimeCap, FitRex, CFDS Market, and iForexGain

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today issued investor warnings against several FX & Crypto Scams. Again, the usual suspects are legal entities in the Marshall Islands and St. Vincent & the Grenadines. In a first quick review of the alleged scams, we found GumBallPay, NeoBanq, and Texcent as facilitating payment processors.

February 4, 2021

Austrian FMA warns against FXOptex Groups scam with iPayTotal, OctaPay, and GumBallPay

BaFin has informed that the 24shares broker scam uses the BaFin logo to communicate with client-victims in an unauthorized and thus fraudulent manner. Moreover, boiler room agents of the broker scam are making unsolicited calls to German investors. The 24shares agents untruthfully state that BaFin has prompted them to make contact. They pretend to offer help with money losses that the investors have suffered in the past when investing.

February 4, 2021

Investor Alert – BaFin issues warning against 24shares abusing the regulator’s logo

February 4, 2021

Former Chief Compliance Officer reported Maltese payment processor Paytah to Interpol

Following the Paytah case, one fails to understand how the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) and the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) have failed to clamp down Phoenix Payments Limited d/b/a Paytah. Interpol investigates the MFSA-regulated high-risk payment processor, Paytah's former Chief Legal and Compliance Officer (CCO) claims. She is currently under the protection of the Maltese Whistleblower Act, but Paytah is still licensed. The public court documents show that she had her job terminated as soon as she raised material AML/KYC issues.

February 2, 2021

Paytah Case – Former MLRO testifies that the payment processor was involved in shabby business

Public court documents suggest that high-risk payment processor Paytah, operated by Malta-based and MFSA-regulated Phoenix Payments Ltd, was into shabby business. Marco Lavanna, the company's beneficial owner and director, dismissed the former Money-Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) and compliance officer who raised serious issues with the company’s management. The dismissed MLRO has now sued her former employer on the grounds of unfair dismissal and, under oath, reveals the payment processor's incompliant business approach.

February 1, 2021

FCA warns against social trading scams Copy Trade Capital and Premium Capital Trade

The pump-and-dump schemes around the Reddit forum WallStreetBets made social trading attractive. It was perfectly foreseeable that scammers were pouncing on this social media powered trading approach. Reports that the already more than 7.8 million members have beaten the Wall Street pros and created billions in market valuation virtually out of thin air is tantalizing. Today, the FCA warned against the Copy Trade Capital and Premium Trade Capital broker scams, which attack consumers mainly in the UK.

January 31, 2021

European Compliance Mess – A challenging week for BaFin and MFSA

BaFin's President Felix Hufeld and Vice President Elisabeth Roegele had to resign because of the Wirecard scandal. Germany's Finance Minister Olaf Scholz wants to make a fresh start. In Malta, former CEO Joe Cuschieri and his longtime confidant and MFSA General Counsel Edwina Licari are involved in compliance issues. They have let themselves be invited to Las Vegas by Yorgen Fenech. Fenech is said to be the mastermind behind the murder of investigative blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia and suspected of bribing members of the former Maltese government.

January 31, 2021

FCA warning against scam broker BimFX24 with payment processor BridgerPay

A few days ago, the UK watchdog FCA issued an investor warning against the broker scam BimFX24. This is allegedly operated by a BIM LLC registered in St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Allegedly registered at the notorious Company Builders Wilfred Services address, the facilitating payment processor is once again the Cypriot BridgerPay of Ran Cohen who repeatedly asserted that BridgerPay would not accept scams. And time and again, BridgerPay is exposed as a scam facilitator.

January 30, 2021

Trading Gamification – Welcome to the new world of GameStop, Bitcoin, and the scammers’ paradise

The U.S. SEC is already looking into the GameStop scheme currently performed. The German and UK regulators BaFin and FCA, too, warned against it and similar stock schemes. On the other hand, celebrities like Elon Musk seem to endorse these new stock games driven by online boiler rooms on Reddit or Telegram and online trading platforms and apps like eToro, Robin Hood, Interactive Brokers, or Kraken. Social media-based market manipulation or the next generation trading approach, that's the question. Anyway, it's scammers' paradise.

January 27, 2021

Regulatory Issues – Malta’s Financial Services Authority making the headlines for the wrong reasons

Joseph “Joe” Cuschieri, the former CEO of Malta's Financial Services Authority (MFSA), keeps hitting the headlines, despite his resignation. The chairman of MFSA, John Mamo, has confirmed in Malta’s Parliament that Cuschieri was being paid honoraria reserved for board members attending meetings; on top of his financial package as CEO. Mamo also revealed that Joseph Cuschieri was asked to return these extra payments.