Cybercrime | FinTelegram News

Category: Cybercrime

February 10, 2021

Investor Alert – Broker Scam Financial Resident and their payment facilitators

With Financial Resident, our whistleblowers have uncovered another broker scam that is currently active. We did not find any legal entity claiming to be the scam operator in our quick initial research. This is also basically worthless information as these are typically front companies in offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands, Marshall Islands, or St. Virgin & the Grenadines. On the other hand, we have discovered several payment processors such as iPayTotal, GumBallPay, and some others. Investors should stay far away from the Financial Resident scam and report information.

February 10, 2021

Investor Alert – 27ProQuote successor scam proFXCredit

We have already warned several times about the broker scam 27ProQuote (a/k/a ProQuote27). This was active until a few weeks ago and has defrauded many victims of probably several million euros. Deposits of the customer-victims were also processed via the Maltese ApcoPay (see FinTelegram report here). We have received information that the same scammers are now operating the proFXCredit scam under the domain www.profxcredit.com via a Lacari Group Ltd. Currently, we are still investigating but warn all investors against proFXCredit.

February 6, 2021

Bravo! Serbian boiler room perpetrator extradited to the United States to stand trial

According to an announcement of the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade and the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Prerak Shah, the Serbian..

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 2, 2021

The Payvision Case – The T1 Payments fraud complaint and the Beyond Wealth MLM scheme

Dutch Payvision is already having headaches with its involvement in scams in Europe. But the high-risk payment processor also had problems in the U.S. and was a co-conspirator of U.S. payment processor T1 Payments in a $4M fraud, according to a lawsuit filed by MLM Beyond Wealth allegations. Payvision quickly settled with Beyond Wealth and bought itself off. In Europe, it probably won't be as easy to settle with money. Payvision will get a place of honor in the scam-facilitating payment processors Hall of Fame.

Securities Manipulation

January 28, 2021

Let’s do some pumps! How Reddit traders defeated Wall Street short-sellers

GameStop, a rather old-fashioned company that sells physical copies of video games in shops in dying malls, is currently the hottest stock in the United States, a “meme stock.” The GameStop microstock listed on the NYSE is at the center of small investors' battle organizing via Reddit against institutional Wall Street short-sellers. The share price jumped from $4 last summer to $20 at the end of 2020, to $40 two weeks ago. At the time of publishing, it is worth $126, resulting in a market capitalization of more than $8B. Already down from $400 and $28B, respectively.

Cybercrime

January 28, 2021

The Victims Paradoxon: A flawed justice system very often leaves financial crime victims behind

When combating financial-economic crime, we usually tend to keep our eyes closed to two aspects: proportionality and the (political) protection of the stakeholder(s). An example is a commotion around the so-called Bulgarian’s fraud in the Netherlands. Dozens of Eastern-Europeans made use, or misuse if you want, of administrative shortcomings in the allowance system placed with the Dutch tax authorities. We are talking about several hundred euros per person in a flawed judicial regime.

January 27, 2021

OSC vs. Cartu Brothers – The latest court order in the binary options fraud case

FinTelegram brought an update yesterday on the Cartu Brothers' case and their problems with regulators U.S. CFTC and the Canadian OSC. Both regulators accuse Canadian-born Israelis David Cartu, Jonathan Cartu, and Joshua Cartu of binary options fraud. On January 26, 2021, after a hearing, the OSC issued a new order with new dates for February 26 and March 25, 2021. At the hearing, only David Cartu was represented by but not his brothers Jonathan and Joshua.

January 27, 2021

Good news for Payvision – Selina welcomes the disgraced payment processor

The Dutch high-risk payment processor Payvision is deeply involved in the swamp of broker scams around the Vienna Cybercrime Trials. It allegedly wilfully and knowingly facilitated broker fraud and money laundering. The presumption of innocence applies. Today's announcement of a partnership with the global hospitality platform Selina has to be appreciated. The idea is to provide Selina clients with ultimate payment experiences while traveling. Not an easy business model in the COVID-19 pandemic but hello, positive news though.

January 26, 2021

Follow the Money – Cartu Brothers, Wirecard and GlobalNetInt

GlobalNetInt has for sure no issue with the online gambling business. Gambling is by far their most important high-risk client segment, our sources say.. And then there are the Cartu Brothers. Law enforcement agencies and financial market regulators have been after them for years now. The U.S. CFTC and the Canadian OSC have sued David Cartu, Joshua Cartu and Jonathan Cartu for alleged binary options fraud. They ask for money! The CFTC claims damages of $165M in the process. We learned that the Cartu Brothers companies have their accounts at the Lithuanian GlobalNetInt.

January 25, 2021

R4I – Cartu Brothers, the GMM binary options fraud, AEGIS Labs, and Kav Sheroot Tech

The Cartu Brothers - David, Jonathan, and Joshua - are very sought after people. They are currently being sued by the U.S. CFTC and Canada's OSC for alleged binary options fraud. The CFTC claims that at least $165M has been stolen from retail investors. The CFTC did not even include all of the Cartu Brothers‘ brands in the complaint. Therefore, it is likely that a multiple of this amount was processed through their GreyMountain Management scheme and other entities. We would like to learn more about AEGIS Labs, Sandbox Media, and Kav Sheroot Tech.

January 25, 2021

Vienna Cybercrime Trials – Marina Barak trial scheduled for March 15 with a new presiding judge

The Israeli fraudster Gal Barak is currently serving his four-year sentence handed down by the court in early September 2020 in the #VCT proceedings. He was one of the principals of the E&G Bulgaria cybercrime organization and found guilty of investment fraud and money-laundering. The German prosecutor's office also wants to charge him and has requested extradition. The trial against his wife, Marina Barak, is scheduled to start on March 15, 2021.