Italian regulator, CONSOB, has been known as one of the most up-to-date regulators in Europe. Every Monday, this regulatory body issues official warnings about financial swindlers they discover and republish warnings from other Tier 1 authorities.
Commissione Nazionale Per Le Societa’ E La Borsa is also issuing licenses to legit financial institutions, including banks, insurance companies, and brokers. They serve as mediators between alleged scammers and retail traders, helping maintain justice.
Hence, let’s see CONSOB warnings issued in December 2022 and which brokers to avoid.
We’ll go into a bit more detail about each of the sites and the reasons Italian CONSOB named them brokers to avoid and black-outed their services.
Bc Solutions Limited is a trading name of EuroInvestPartner. The broker in question pretends to be an EU-based trading firm, using the EU flag to deceive investors.
However, the link to their alleged license leads to the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. This license belongs to Bright Smart Forex Limited, a firm not associated with EuroInvestPartner.
With their high initial deposit of $500 and unregulated leverage of 1:200, it’s clear that the brokerage cannot provide legal financial services in the EU. According to the MiFID directive and ESMA rules, all EU brokers must maintain a leverage limit of 1:30 for retail traders.
Next on the CONSOB list is Sharkoption, operating under the domain sharkoption.com. Currently, the domain is inactive, but it’s highly possible that it will be reopened. We’ve seen it many times.
The scam allegedly disappears, and traders get a false sense of safety, only to fall again for the same fraud under a different name.
Additionally, there’s an issue with stolen funds. When the domain shuts down, traders can no longer log in to their investment accounts and get their money back. Hence, this makes Sharkoption a broker to avoid.
Funnily named HonestCapital, Coconors and Partners LLC brand is anything but honest. The firm is based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the only place without actual financial supervision of Forex companies.
Ever since the FSA declared itself unauthorized for Forex and CFD firms, we’ve seen them flourish like mushrooms after the rain. Of course, since they are unregulated, these firms offer non-legit trading conditions.
For instance, HonestCapital provides leverage of up to 1:100 while obtaining EEA zone residents. Furthermore, the company offers bonuses and other incentives that the European Securities and Markets Authority strictly prohibited.
Finally, we have Winnex Consulting and its brand winexconsulting.com. The firm claims to be a Wealth Fund Services Ltd brand registered in Cyprus and covered by a CySEC license. While the said company exists and has nine brands under its wing, none is Winex Consulting.
Further proof of the broker’s illicit status is the fact that trading leverage and fees are missing from the site. Legit brokers will always ensure to present you with all the trading conditions, while scammers will only disclose how much you need to pay them.
The following Monday, we received another batch of warnings, this time containing two malicious websites. This is regarding Evolve Consulting LLC, the owner of CapitalBiz and CapitalBase.
Both sites provide unregulated financial services and have been added to the list of brokers to avoid. Let’s see more about the company owner and both domains.
Both domains, capitalbiz.io, and capitalbase.io look pretty much the same except for their names. And both belong to Evolve Consulting LLC, a company registered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. As aforementioned, this offshore island has no financial regulator in charge of the Forex market.
Both sites have a Regulation and Licensing section, but once you click on it, you will be provided with other legal documents, such as T&C and Privacy Policy. The license is nowhere to be found.
Furthermore, the leverage goes up to 1:500, while trading commissions are quite high, starting at 4.5 EUR per lot and 3 pips spread.
On the 19th of December, we got warnings against four abusive websites. Each of these has been offering financial services or products, has been identified as an abusive financial intermediation site, or has provided financial products without a prospectus.
Here’s what CONSOB has warned us about.
As SVG has no financial regulator, and Tier 1 regulators such as FCA, CONSOB, and BaFin, have not issued a Spartan Trade regulation, it’s clear that we’re talking about financial fraud.
The leverage ranges from 1:100 to 1:500, well above the EU limit of 1:30 for FX pairs.
While alltradingeu.co is no longer active, from the name itself, we can conclude the main target of the fraud – EU residents. The firm never provided an official owner or legal jurisdiction, leading us to believe it was another offshore scam.
The site was blacklisted in November 2022, but CONSOB has repeatedly stressed it. Presumably, the broker employees are still calling clients and trying to entice them to deposit the money without having an active website or a trading platform.
Don’t fall for it. This is a broker to avoid.
Another Italian site with the alleged address in Cyprus is Nbi Markets. The firm claims to be owned by NBI Investments Limited. While the names are resembling, NBI Investments Ltd is a CySEC-regulated firm operating through the domain nbinvest.com. Hence, the two are not related.
This is why CONSOB has added Nbi Markets to its list of fraudulent financial services providers.
Finally, the latest warning refers to Finance Partners GmbH and their brand, NextGenCrypto.
This allegedly Swiss-based trading firm offers smart contracts based on blockchain investments. They claim to have CRO and Binance support, and CONSOB regulations since May 2022.
However, the warning speaks for itself, meaning that CONSOB has never approved such a project. Furthermore, the website is quite obscure, giving no details about the alleged investment opportunity, costs, returns, or similar.
To sum up, if the said brokers scammed you, you could file a report to the relevant authorities. Then, they will add the domain to the list of blacklisted firms, as CONSOB did here.
The post CONSOB Warnings Dec 2022 – CONSOB Warns About These Brokers to Avoid appeared first on Global Fraud Protection.
