Regulation | FinTelegram News

Category: Regulation

October 21, 2020

EU Commission takes action against Cyprus and Malta’s Golden Passports Schemes

EU passports are highly prized as they give their owners the right to travel, live, and work freely in all 27 members of the union. Unfortunately, some countries such as Cyprus and Malta sell citizenships and thus EU passports as part of investment programs for the sole benefit of these countries. Most recently, Al Jazeera has revealed that Cyprus is also offering its "Golden Passports" scheme to convicted criminals and money launderers. Now the EU is finally intervening.

October 19, 2020

German Watchdog issues Cease and Desist against two illegal payment processors

On October 19, 2020, German regulator BaFin issued two Cease and Desist Orders against the two unauthorized payment processors ION & Maga Consulting GmbH and Premium Service ECN GmbH. Both of them have been processing bank transfers from client-victims of the broker scams BlueTrading, CoinBrokerz, and TradeDAX respectively.

October 12, 2020

German BaFin issues Cease-and-Disease order against TopInvestus – again!

On October 9, 2020, the German regulator BaFin again ordered the discontinuation of the TopInvestus broker scam. Already in May 2020, the regulator issued a cease-and-desist order against the scam which was then operated under the domain www.topinvestus.com by Silverdale Holdings Ltd, British Virgin Islands, and Vindigo Systems OÜ, Estonia.

October 11, 2020

Investor Warning – Crypto-based forex scheme Mirror Trading International

The much criticized Bitcoin-based forex trading MLM scheme Mirror Trading International ("MTI") was established in April 2019 in South Africa by MLM veteran Johann Steynberg. In July 2020 the Texas Financial Services Authority (FSSB) issued a cease-and-desist order against MTI and in August 2020 the South African FSCA issued an investor warning. Allegedly the MTI scheme has more than 140,000 members holding some 17,000 BTC in their trading accounts.

October 11, 2020

Lessons from BitMEX Case – Arrests, warrants, and bribing regulators with coconuts

The U.S. Prosecutors charge the BitMex founders Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, Samuel Reed along with the senior manager Gregory Dwyer with (a) violating the Bank Secrecy Act and (b) conspiring to violate the Bank Secrecy Act, by willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an anti-money laundering (“AML”) program at the crypto exchange or BitMEX. The charges each carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

October 10, 2020

CySEC Scam Tourism – The ‘Blank Pages Approach’ of Financial Ombudsman Cyprus!

Andreas Koufkis is for sure an honorable businessman. He is one of the seven members of the Board of Directors of The Financial Ombudsman of the Republic of Cyprus. By his business genes, Koufkis is not on the consumer side. Being the General Manager of Atlantis Securities Ltd, a company registered in Cyprus and licensed by CySEC (CIF 005/03) he can not be regarded as a consumer advocate. Only one director, Loucas Aristodemou, is representing consumers as President of the CyprusConsumers Union and Quality of Life.

October 9, 2020

Maxigrid Case – Open Letter to CySEC chairwoman and Europol

FinTelegram and EFRI have sent an open letter concerning Maxigrid and the related broker scams like RoyalsFX or LincolnFX (to name only two) to Demetra Kalogerou, chairwoman of CySEC, and Europol. The claim of The Financial Ombudsman Service of the Republic of Cyprus that CySEC would not be responsible for the crypto activities of the investment firms they regulate is wrong in our view. In addition, Maxigrid also handled bank deposits for scams hance was involved in fraudulent FIAT transactions too.

October 9, 2020

BitMEX founders resign amid regulatory enforcement actions and criminal actions

While the CySEC looks away from cryptocurrencies, the U.S. authorities and regulators proceed strictly and consistently in this regard. The U.S. CFTC and U.S. Government announced law enforcement actions action charging the BitMEX co-founders and executives Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, Samuel Reed, Gregory Dwyer, and their legal entities with operating an unregistered trading platform and violating multiple CFTC regulations as well as the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act.

October 8, 2020

Maxigrid Case – Cyprus Financial Ombudsman confirms regulatory violations but doesn’t care!

Cyprus is really dark territory within the regulatory regimes in the EU. In plain sight, CySEC-regulated investment firms operate scams and/or facilitate them with their financial services. As in the case of Roy Almagor's Maxigrid and its meanwhile vanished BitandBuy crypto investment platform. Even the Financial Ombudsman Office has found that Maxigrid has violated regulatory requirements. However, the office does not feel responsible for customer complaints for very strange reasons.

October 8, 2020

Investor warning against Billion Forex broker scam as part of FCA-regulated Billion Key

The logo of the broker scam Billion Forex resembles the one of Red Bull and this could be intentional. Currently, there are no warnings against the scam by a financial market regulator but FinTelegram already has whistleblower information and complaints. The scam is operated by BillionTraders Services OÜ, Estonia, and Billion Traders Ltd, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. They claim to be part of FCA-regulated Billion Key Ltd. TEXCENT is the facilitating payment processor.

October 8, 2020

CMNV Warnings against scam Broker LMFX and FinmaxFX

The Spanish regulator CNMV issued several investor warnings against several scam brokers earlier this week. These include LMFX operated by Global Trade Partners Ltd, Macedonia,..

October 7, 2020

Law Enforcement request for information for HybridReserve broker scam

FinTelegram was asked by an EU law enforcement agency to ask for information about the broker scam HybridReserve. The authorities have received several fraud complaints from retail investors. Already in February 2019 the Belgian regulator Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) and other regulators issued an investor warning against HybridReserve, which is operated by Singlebell Ltd in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Singlebell OÜ from Estonia.