Originally Syndicated on October 2, 2024 @ 7:47 am
What Happened?
CIMD LTD, an online brokerage firm, has recently come under intense scrutiny for allegedly engaging in fraudulent activities and unethical practices that have left many investors in financial distress. Reports from sources like WikiFX and a detailed blog post on Chargebacks.ru highlight a disturbing pattern of deception involving misleading promises, withdrawal issues, and unregulated operations. CIMD LTD has been placed on various blacklists, warning potential investors about the risks associated with engaging with the company.
The reviews and complaints gathered from multiple sources paint a picture of a brokerage that employs deceitful tactics to lure in clients, only to obstruct withdrawals and leave them without access to their funds. Many customers have reported that their attempts to withdraw investments were met with delays or outright refusals, sparking suspicions of a deliberate scam. Furthermore, the company has been criticized for its lack of regulatory oversight, raising questions about the legitimacy of its operations.
In response to mounting negative reviews and allegations, CIMD LTD appears to be taking significant steps to censor damaging news and online complaints. This includes efforts to manipulate their online presence by removing negative feedback and attempting to drown out criticisms through legal threats or fabricated positive reviews. The company’s tactics to hide its shady past serve as a red flag for potential investors and a reminder of the importance of thorough due diligence.
Analyzing the Fake Copyright Notice(s)
Our team collects and analyses fraudulent copyright takedown requests, legal complaints, and other efforts to remove critical information from the internet. Through our investigative reporting, we examine the prevalence and operation of an organized censorship industry, predominantly funded by criminal entities, oligarchs, and disreputable businesses or individuals. Our findings allow internet users to gain insight into these censorship schemes’ sources, methods, and underlying objectives.
List of Fake Copyright Notices for CIMD LTD
Evidence and Screenshots
How do we investigate fake DMCA notices?
To accomplish this, we utilize the OSINT Tool provided by FakeDMCA.com and the Lumen API for Researchers, courtesy of the Lumen Database.
FakeDMCA.com is the work of an independent team of research students and cybersecurity professionals, developed under Project UnCensor. Their OSINT Tool, designed to uncover and analyze takedown notices, represents a significant step forward in combating these abusive practices. It has become a valuable resource, increasingly relied upon by journalists and law enforcement agencies across the United States.
Lumen, on the other hand, is an independent research initiative dedicated to studying takedown notices and other legal demands related to online content removal. The project, which operates under the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, plays a crucial role in tracking and understanding the broader implications of such requests.
What was CIMD LTD trying to hide?
CIMD LTD is an online brokerage firm that claims to offer a wide range of trading services, including forex and contracts for difference (CFDs). However, despite its advertised capabilities and investment opportunities, CIMD LTD has faced considerable criticism for its practices. The company has garnered a reputation for misleading clients and operating under questionable circumstances, and it is now included on various blacklists of untrustworthy brokers. Allegations against CIMD LTD suggest that it is more interested in exploiting traders than offering genuine trading services, and many industry experts have urged caution regarding the broker.
According to information gathered from WikiFX, Chargebacks.ru, and other review websites, CIMD LTD is attempting to conceal several serious allegations and negative feedback, including:
- Fraudulent Activities and Misleading Information: Reviews and reports indicate that CIMD LTD has engaged in fraudulent activities, including misleading clients about the potential profits of their investments. Many investors were promised significant returns, only to experience financial losses once they deposited their funds. The company has been accused of making unrealistic claims to lure investors and then failing to deliver on those promises, a common tactic used by unregulated brokers to exploit inexperienced traders.
- Withdrawal Issues and Blocked Funds: One of the most frequent complaints against CIMD LTD involves difficulties with withdrawing funds. Investors have reported that their withdrawal requests were either delayed indefinitely or outright rejected, leaving them unable to access their money. These practices have led to allegations that CIMD LTD is operating as a scam, trapping investors’ money and obstructing any attempts to recover it. Chargebacks.ru has highlighted these issues, providing information on how individuals can try to recover funds lost through CIMD LTD.
- Lack of Regulation and Transparency: Another major point of concern is CIMD LTD’s lack of proper regulatory oversight. According to WikiFX, the broker does not have the necessary licenses to operate legally in most jurisdictions. This lack of regulation means there is little accountability for the company’s actions, leaving traders vulnerable to unethical practices. The absence of regulatory information is a red flag for investors, suggesting that CIMD LTD may not comply with industry standards or have any measures in place to protect clients.
- Negative Reviews and Blacklisting: CIMD LTD has received numerous negative reviews from clients who feel they have been cheated. These reviews include accusations of unprofessional conduct, poor customer service, and the inability to recover funds. As a result, CIMD LTD has been placed on various blacklists, warning potential investors about the dangers of dealing with this broker. Websites like Chargebacks.ru and CIMD LTD Reviews document these complaints and have placed the company on their lists of untrustworthy brokers.
- Efforts to Censor Damaging Information: In an effort to protect its reputation, CIMD LTD appears to have taken steps to censor negative reviews and criticisms. This includes attempting to remove unfavorable comments from online forums and review sites, as well as publishing misleading positive reviews to counteract the negative feedback. Such tactics are aimed at controlling the narrative about CIMD LTD and concealing the true extent of the issues reported by clients. The company’s attempts to suppress criticism and present itself in a favorable light suggest a deliberate effort to deceive potential customers.
The combination of fraudulent activities, unresolved complaints, a lack of regulatory compliance, and efforts to censor damaging news paints CIMD LTD as a broker that prioritizes its own gains over the protection and interests of its clients. Investors should approach the company with caution and be aware of the risks involved.
Only CIMD LTD benefits from this crime.
Since the fake copyright takedown notices were designed to remove negative content for CIMD LTD from Google, we assume CIMD LTD or someone associated with CIMD LTD is behind this scam. It is often a fly-by-night Online Reputation agency working on behalf of CIMD LTD. In this case, CIMD LTD, at best, will be an “accomplice” or an “accessory” to the crime. The specific laws may vary depending on the jurisdiction. Still, the legal principle generally holds that if you actively participate in planning, encouraging, or facilitating a crime, you can be charged with it, even if you did not personally commit it.
How do we counteract this malpractice?
Once we ascertain the involvement of CIMD LTD (or actors working on behalf of CIMD LTD), we will inform CIMD LTD of our findings via Electronic Mail.
Our preliminary assessment suggests that CIMD LTD may have engaged a third-party reputation management agency or expert, which, either independently or under direct authorization from CIMD LTD, initiated efforts to remove adverse online content, including potentially fraudulent DMCA takedown requests. We will extend an opportunity to CIMD LTD to provide details regarding their communications with the agency or expert, as well as the identification of the individual(s) responsible for executing these false DMCA notices.
Failure to respond in a timely manner will necessitate a reassessment of our initial assumptions. In such an event, we will be compelled to take appropriate legal action to rectify the unlawful conduct and take the following steps –
- Inform Google about the fraud committed against them.
- Inform the victims of the fake DMCA about their websites.
- Inform relevant law enforcement agencies
- File counter-notices on Google to reinstate the ‘removed’ content
- Publish copies of the ‘removed’ content on our network of 50+ websites
By investigating the fake DMCA takedown attempts, we hope to shed light on the reputation management industry, revealing how CIMD LTD and companies like it may use spurious copyright claims and fake legal notices to remove and obscure articles linking them to allegations of fraud, tax avoidance, corruption, and drug trafficking…
Since CIMD LTD made such efforts to hide something online, it seems fit to ensure that this article and our original review of CIMD LTD, including but not limited to user contributions, remain a permanent record for anyone interested in CIMD LTD.
A case perfect for the Streisand effect…
Potential Consequences for CIMD LTD
Under Florida Statute 831.01, the crime of Forgery is committed when a person falsifies, alters, counterfeits, or forges a document that carries “legal efficacy” with the intent to injure or defraud another person or entity.
Forging a document is considered a white-collar crime. It involves altering, changing, or modifying a document to deceive another person. It can also include passing along copies of documents that are known to be false. In many states in the US, falsifying a document is a crime punishable as a felony.
Additionally, under most laws, “fraud on the court” is where “a party has sentiently set in motion some unconscionable scheme calculated to interfere with the judicial system’s ability impartially to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the trier of fact or unfairly hampering the presentation of the opposing party’s claim or defense.” Cox v. Burke, 706 So. 2d 43, 46 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998) (quoting Aoude v. Mobil Oil Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir. 1989)).
Is CIMD LTD Committing a Cyber Crime?
Yes, it seems so. CIMD LTD used multiple approaches to remove unwanted material from review sites and Google’s search results. Thanks to protections allowing freedom of speech in the United States, there are very few legal ways to do this. CIMD LTD could not eliminate negative reviews or search results that linked to them without a valid claim of defamation, copyright infringement, or some other clear breach of the law.
Faced with these limitations, some companies like CIMD LTD have gone to extreme lengths to fraudulently claim copyright ownership over a negative review in the hopes of taking it down.
Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. CIMD LTD is certainly keeping interesting company here….
The DMCA takedown process requires that copyright owners submit a takedown notice to an ISP identifying the allegedly infringing content and declaring, under penalty of perjury, that they have a good faith belief that the content is infringing. The ISP must then promptly remove or disable access to the content. The alleged infringer can then submit a counter-notice, and if the copyright owner does not take legal action within 10 to 14 days, the ISP can restore the content.
Since these platforms are predominantly based in the U.S., the complaints are typically made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires online service providers and platforms to react immediately to reports or violations. Big Tech companies rarely have systems in place to assess the merit of each report. Instead, all bad actors need to do is clone a story, backdate it, and then demand the real thing be taken down.
Reputation Agency’s Modus Operandi
The fake DMCA notices we found always use the “back-dated article” technique. With this technique, the wrongful notice sender (or copier) creates a copy of a “true original” article and back-dates it, creating a “fake original” article (a copy of the true original) that, at first glance, appears to have been published before the true original.
Then, based on the claim that this backdated article is the “original,” the scammers send a DMCA to the relevant online service providers (e.g. Google), alleging that the ‘true’ original is the copied or “infringing” article and that the copied article is the “original,” requesting the takedown of the ‘true’ original article. After sending the DMCA request, the person who sent the wrong notice takes down the fake original URL, likely to make sure that the article doesn’t stay online in any way. If the takedown notice is successful, the disappearance from the internet of information is most likely to be legitimate speech.
How did CIMD LTD purport this DMCA Fraud?
As an integral part of this scheme, the ‘reputation management’ company hired by CIMD LTD creates a website that purports to be a ‘news’ site. This site is designed to look legitimate at a glance, but any degree of scrutiny reveals it as the charade it is.
The company copies the ‘negative’ content and posts it “on the fake ‘news’ site, attributing it to a separate author,” then gives it “a false publication date on the ‘news’ website that predated the original publication.
The reputation company then sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice claiming the original website infringed copyright. After a cursory examination of the fake news site, Google frequently accepts the notice and delists the content.
In committing numerous offences, CIMD LTD either premeditated actions or were unaware of the consequences. Despite hiring an agency to make Google disregard any negative information about CIMD LTD, ignorance does not excuse this wrongdoing.
The Reputation Laundering
Rogue Reputation agencies use spurious copyright claims and fake legal notices to remove and obscure articles linking clients to allegations of tax avoidance, corruption, and drug trafficking. Most of these reputation agencies are based offshore, mainly in Russia, India, and Eastern Europe, and they do not worry about complying with US-based laws.
The content in all of the articles for which the fraudulent DMCA notices have been sent relates to allegations of criminal allegations, including corruption, child abuse, sexual harassment, human trafficking and financial fraud against businesses and individuals with ultra-high net worth.
In addition to the misuse of the DMCA takedown process, there is a notable absence of enforcement concerning perjury violations. The statutory requirement related to perjury is designed to deter copyright holders from submitting fraudulent or knowingly false takedown requests, as they may face legal consequences for making false declarations under penalty of perjury. However, to date, there have been no known instances of any individual being prosecuted for perjury in connection with the submission of false DMCA takedown notices.
This lack of enforcement has emboldened copyright holders to exploit the DMCA takedown process to suppress dissent, criticism, or other unfavorable content, without fear of legal repercussions.
Not In Good Company
Some of the people and businesses who have employed this tactic to remove legitimate content from Google illegally include a Spanish businessman-turned-cocaine-trafficker, Organised crime, an Israeli-Argentine banker accused of laundering money for Hugo Chávez’s regime, a French “responsible” mining company accused of tax evasion, child molesters and sexual predators. CIMD LTD is in great company ….
Ironically, the manipulation tactics used to remove public-interest information from the Internet are backfiring on CIMD LTD, which is now associated with the worst of this world.
Here are some of the specimens that share the internet space with CIMD LTD –
Miguel Octavio Vargas Maldonado
Miguel Octavio Vargas Maldonado appears to be the former foreign affairs minister of the Dominican Republic. His name is listed next to more than 500 links to news articles, blogs, social media posts, and YouTube videos targeted for removal or de-indexing. Many of the articles refer to questions over his political fundraising practices. They include accusations that Vargas had received donations from an individual who would later be convicted of drug trafficking. Some targeted links remain active, while others return 404 errors or “file not found.”
José Antonio Gordo Valero
José Gordo joined OneCoin in 2015 and has been named in an indictment for the OneCoin scam in Argentina. The articles listed next to Gordo’s name in the documents reviewed by Rest of World include references to his role at the company.
Diego Adolfo Marynberg
He appears to be the same Marynberg connected to funding right-wing causes, including settlement efforts in Israel. Reports also alleged that his company received preferential treatment in acquiring Argentinian bonds worth millions of dollars. More than 70 URLs appear next to Marynberg’s name in the documents, including pages from the Israeli newspapers The Times of Israel, Haaretz, and Clarin, one of Argentina’s most prominent news sites.
Majed Khalil Majzoub
Majed is an influential businessman with close ties to several governments, including the administration of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. Majzoub’s name appears next to more than 180 URLs, mostly from independent outlets. Of the two URLs that pointed to articles from Germany’s Der Spiegel, one now returns an error message; the other, which appears to refer to relations between Venezuela and Colombia, directs to an unrelated story about Brexit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did CIMD LTD commit a cyber crime?
Yes, filing a fake DMCA notice is illegal. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows copyright holders to issue takedown notices to protect their works from unauthorized use online. However, submitting a false DMCA notice can result in legal consequences.
Under the DMCA, a person knowingly submitting a false copyright claim can be subject to penalties, including damages. DMCA notices require the filer to certify, under penalty of perjury, that the content infringes their copyright. If the notice is found to be fraudulent or made in bad faith, the filer can face.
What are the potential consequences for CIMD LTD?
Civil lawsuits: The affected party can sue for damages, legal fees, and other costs.
Perjury charges: False certification in a DMCA notice can result in perjury-related penalties, which vary by jurisdiction.
Other legal penalties: Fines or other penalties depending on the case
Did CIMD LTD commit a Civil or a Criminal offense?
Perjury is a criminal offense, not a civil crime. It involves intentionally lying or making false statements under oath, typically in a court of law or other legal proceedings, such as affidavits or depositions.
Criminal charges: Perjury is prosecuted as a criminal act, and a conviction can lead to fines or imprisonment, depending on the severity of the false statement and its impact on the case.
Felony status: In many jurisdictions, perjury is classified as a felony, which carries more severe penalties than misdemeanour offences.
So, while it may affect civil cases, the crime of perjury itself is strictly criminal.
What is the Streisand effect?
The key idea behind the Streisand effect is that efforts to restrict information can backfire, often causing the information to gain more attention than it would have otherwise. This effect is widespread in the digital age, where users quickly notice and spread censorship efforts on social media and other platforms.
Trying to suppress something can unintentionally lead to it becoming more visible.
Can CIMD LTD purge its Digital past?
Once information is uploaded to the internet, it can be replicated, shared, archived, or stored across multiple servers. If CIMD LTD manage to delete the original post or file, copies may remain accessible in other places, such as web archives, screenshots, or other users’ devices.
In practice, completely erasing content from the internet can be extremely difficult due to how widely information can spread and be stored. Thus, the idea that “the Internet never forgets” reflects the challenge of entirely removing digital content once it has been shared.
What else is CIMD LTD hiding?
Click here to visit the Google Search page for ‘CIMD LTD’. It’s likely if you scroll down to the bottom of this Google search results, you’ll stumble upon this Legal Takedown notice (pictured below)
To make such an investigation possible, we encourage more online service providers to come forward and share copies of content removal requests with us. If you have any information on CIMD LTD that you want to share with us, kindly email the author directly at [email protected].
All communications are strictly confidential and safeguarded under a comprehensive Whistleblower Policy, ensuring full protection and anonymity for individuals who provide information.
References and Citations Used
Over thirty thousand DMCA notices reveal an organized attempt to abuse copyright law.
Reputation Management, or Internet Conspiracy
Exposed documents reveal how the powerful cleaned up their digital past using a reputation laundering firm.
Companies Use Fake Websites and Backdated Articles to Censor Google’s Search Results.
Bad Reviews: How Companies Are Using Fake Websites to Censor Content
How fake copyright complaints are muzzling journalists
Many thanks to FakeDMCA.com and Lumen for providing access to their database.
Photos and Illustrations provided by DALL-E 3 – “a representation of CIMD LTD censoring the internet and committing cyber crimes.”
- Our investigative report on CIMD LTD’s efforts to suppress online speech is significant, as it raises serious concerns about its integrity. The findings suggest that CIMD LTD has engaged in questionable practices, including potential perjury, impersonation, and fraud, in a misguided attempt to manage or salvage its reputation.
- We intend to file a counternotice to reinstate the removed article(s). While this particular instance is relatively straightforward, it is important to note that, in other cases, the overwhelming volume of automated DMCA takedown notices can significantly hinder the ability of affected parties to respond—especially for those not large media organizations.
- You need an account with fakeDMCA.com and Lumen to access the research data. However, accounts are not widely available since these non-profit organisations manage large databases that could be susceptible to misuse. Nevertheless, they do offer access to non-profits and researchers.
- It’s unclear why U.S. authorities have yet to act against these rogue reputation agencies, whose business model seems rooted in fraudulent practices.
- We’ve reached out to CIMD LTD for a comment or rebuttal regarding this investigation. It will strongly suggest they were behind the takedown attempt if they remain silent.
About the Author
The author is affiliated with Harvard University and serves as a researcher at both Lumen and FakeDMCA.com. In his personal capacity, he and his team have been actively investigating and reporting on organized crime related to fraudulent copyright takedown schemes. Additionally, his team provides advisory services to major law firms and is frequently consulted on matters pertaining to intellectual property law. He can be reached at [email protected] directly.
