Cybercrime | FinTelegram News

Category: Cybercrime

February 16, 2021

Investor Warning – Don’t fall for the BTC-Markets crypto scam

Cryptocurrencies are currently a gigantic hype in social media thanks to Elon Musk and other celebrities. Within just under two months, the price went from $20,000 to nearly $50,000. The bull run seems to have no end. Therefore, it is easy for scammers and their boiler room agents on social media to acquire new customer victims for their crypto scams. BTC-Markets (www.btc-markets.com), operated through the offshore entity Sunstar Holdings Ltd in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, is one of these scams. Many victims have already fallen for it.

February 15, 2021

German-Ukrainian Capital Letter Scam Group and its payment facilitators

German Capital Letter group operatees scams such as BrightFinance, SolidInvest, GFXRoyal, STSRoyal, STSCrypto, or GFXFinance. Various European regulators such as the FCA, BaFin, or the FMA have already warned and issued Cease and Desist Orders over the last months. The Italian Consob has ordered a blackout of the sites. Some scams are still active. Now the UK FCA issued a new warning. Praxis Cashier is still facilitating the GFXRoyal scam along with the Estonian AnyCach OÜ (d/b/a any.money).

February 13, 2021

Investor Warning – Bitcoin Formula recruits victims for Lucrum.Pro, FXCM Group, Triton Capital Markets and others

FinTelegram recently issued an investor warning against Bitcoin Formula, an affiliate system to recruit new victims for various broker scams. Among them, we have discovered the Lucrum.Pro (www.lucrum.pro) is one of the many scams promoted via Bitcoin Formula. This specific scam is allegedly operated by Econdary LLC, registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Deposits can be made using an intermediate solution via Stripe and PayPal or cryptocurrencies. The scam found an interesting solution to integrate Stripe and PayPal via a Polish Sales Master Z.O.O. (d/b/a Varifilio).

February 13, 2021

Investor Alert – Don’t fall for the Bitcoin Formula & ProfitsTrade, LucrumPro, FXCM Group scams powered by Praxis Cashier!

The crypto hype is getting stronger every day. Almost every day, we read headlines about new crypto events. PayPal reports records since they accept cryptocurrencies. Elon Musk and his Tesla are buying $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoins, and most recently, Twitter chief Jack Dorsey and Jay-Z announced the creation of a Bitcoin trust. Meanwhile, the big media houses like CNN, BBC, or the Financial Times entertain with ever new exciting crypto stories. Scammers use this hype to rip off greedy and/or naive consumers with scams like Bitcoin Formula and ProfitsTrade.

February 12, 2021

Illegal German payment processors Z.I.E natural edition, Maka Marketing, and their network

German BaFin issued cease and desist orders against Z.I.E natural edition and Maka Marketing. Both payment processors processed bank transfers from victims of several broker scams like easytrade55 or MarketsSoft. The British resident Aron Wertheimer is involved in both companies. He is a director of Maka Marketing and the liquidator of Z.I.E natural edition. Scam victims who used Z.I.E natural edition or Maka Marketing should file their fund recovery claim with these companies and Aron Wertheimer and his partners.

February 12, 2021

Dear Nominee Directors and Monkeys in Estonia, Serbia, Germany, and all other jurisdictions!

Scammers typically operate their legal entities through trustees and nominee directors. The so-called Companies Builders or Corporate Services providers thrive well on cybercrime. In many cases, such as obtaining a crypto license in Estonia, local directors are needed. Therefore, a booming corporate services business with Nominee Directors and trustees has developed around the (worthless in a regulatory sense) Estonian crypto licenses. The Estonian regulator FIU is openly watching or overwhelmed with their supervisory obligations.

February 11, 2021

Investor Alert – Estonian TheCapitalStocks scam still active attacking EU consumers

n September 2020, the German regulator BaFin issued a cease and desist order against the broker scams TheCapitalStocks (www.thecapitalstocks.com) and RoyaltyFinance (www.royaltyfinance.io), operated by Estonian Kleinman Group via its company in St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Already in August 2020, the Italian CONSOB warned against these scams. Recently FinTelegram published a report on the Estonian Kleinman Group (read here). Unfortunately, the TheCapitalStocks scam is still online.

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, the Serbian Antonije Stojilkovic, 32, has been extradited to the U.S. to stand trial on allegations that he and his co-conspirators defrauded investors out of more than $70 million in binary options and crypto scam schemes. The Serbian police arrested Stojilkovic on July 24, 2020. Stojilkovic consented to extradition, and he was consequently extradited on Feb. 4, 2021. It's about time to crack down on the vast Belgrade scam scene.

February 4, 2021

Pradexx again! FMA warns against the payment processor’s scam client iTradeFX

FinTelegram readers are not new to our opinion that payment processors are responsible for many scams and damaged victims. Without payment processors knowingly and willingly participating, 99% of the scams would not be possible in the first place. One of these payment processors is the Estonian Pradexx operating with one of those worthless FIU crypto licenses. Today we found Pradexx again as a scam facilitator in iTradeFX, against which the FMA has issued an investor warning.

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.