The Israeli fund recovery service Pay Back a/k/a PayBack a/k/a Money Back are owned by Amir Geva and Daniel Poleb. They ask victims for several thousand euros or dollars down payment and, in addition, profit sharing. In many cases, it would be easier for victims to go directly to the relevant financial ombudsman and reclaim the money from the facilitating bank. Here is a report.
Fronter Decision GmbH, registered in Offenbach, Germany, was entered into the commercial register in April 2019. The Ukrainian Nikitin Oleksiy was appointed as the sole managing director. In fact, many of the German money laundering companies have Ukrainian directors. As non-EU citizens, these are hardly legally enforceable. BaFin issued a cease-and-desist order against the company in November 2020, which is now final.
PolarisTradePay (www.polaristradepay.com) is an unregistered brokerage platform in the field of energy, agriculture, stocks, and crypto-currencies. The UK FCA issued an investor warning against the broker on December 11, 2020, and calls it a scam. The platform is allegedly operated by Polaristrade.com Ltd, which does not exist.
On Dec 1, 2020, the U.S. CFTC’s Division of Enforcement published its annual report for Fiscal Year 2020 (FY 2020). CFTC enforcement actions during FY 2020 resulted in $1,327,869,760 in ordered monetary relief, the fourth-highest total on record, and the third straight year-over-year increase.
Consob is currently the only financial market regulator known to us that has the legal authority to order internet providers to black-out of illegal financial sites. Including the five new black-out orders, Consob has already blocked 335 websites for the Italian market. Almost all blocked sites offer illegal broker services.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is undoubtedly the world’s leading regulator, making decisions and setting standards that go far beyond the U.S. That said, the appointment of the SEC chair is a political statement with far-reaching consequences for the global community of regulators. Jay Clayton, the SEC chairman of the Trump announced his departure and makes way for his successor under the Biden era.
The U.S. SEC announced an award of over $1.1 million to a whistleblower whose independent analysis led to a look at new conduct during an ongoing investigation. This whistleblower investigated publicly available materials and conducted an analysis that revealed important new insights into securities law violations.
The U.S. Whistleblower programs of regulators such as the SEC and CFTC are becoming a lucrative business for agencies that focus on the procurement of whistleblower information. This includes activities outside the U.S. This week the SEC awarded $900,000 for the detection of securities law violations overseas. Whistleblowers get their awards from monetary sanctions paid to the regulator from the offenders.
SVG is a popular offshore destination with scammers. This is where they establish their offshore companies as operators of broker scams like QTECK or Online Trading. These legal entities are usually by Wilfred Services in Kingstown, St. Vincent & the Grenadines. At QTECK, Praxis Cashier is again integrated as a payment processor. The FCA issued investor warnings against these broker scams today.
The Italian Consob is the only EU regulator with the power to block websites of unauthorized financial service providers and scams as a means of regulatory enforcement action. The black-out of the respective website is intended to prevent Italian consumers from accessing these offers and being cheated. On Nov 9, 2020, Consob ordered the black-out of another five websites.
