SpotOption’s Cyber Crime Report

Originally Syndicated on October 10, 2024 @ 5:54 am

What Happened?

SpotOption, once a major player in the binary options trading industry, has been facing increasing scrutiny over its controversial business practices and dubious past. Accusations have emerged, suggesting that the company has engaged in unethical activities, including fraudulent trading practices, misleading clients, and exploiting regulatory loopholes. These concerns came to light following the collapse of the binary options industry, where companies like SpotOption were accused of facilitating scams that left many investors with significant financial losses.

As part of its efforts to distance itself from this shady past, SpotOption has allegedly resorted to censoring damaging news and manipulating online narratives. Reports on platforms like Forex Peace Army have exposed how the company has attempted to suppress critical information, including negative reviews and forum posts that highlight its involvement in unethical behavior. There are claims that SpotOption is now venturing into the blockchain space, raising further alarm among critics who fear that its questionable tactics may continue under a new guise.

This growing body of evidence points to a pattern of behavior where SpotOption seeks to control its public image rather than confront and address the legitimate concerns raised by former clients and industry observers. As more details emerge, the company’s efforts to erase its shady history only seem to draw more attention to its unresolved controversies.

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 SpotOption

Number of Fake DMCA Notice(s)	1
Lumen Database Notice(s)	https://lumendatabase.org/notices/43652296
Sender(s)	Yowan Media & Co.
Date(s)	Aug 07, 2024
Fake Link(s) Used by Scammers	https://georgianewsboard.com/?p=333
Original Link(s) Targeted	http://forexpeacearmy.com/community/threads/spotoption-blockchain-scam-coming.51752/page-2/

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 SpotOption trying to hide?

SpotOption is a company that gained notoriety as a leading provider of platforms and technology for binary options trading. Established in 2010, SpotOption provided white-label solutions that allowed numerous online brokers to offer binary options trading to their customers. Binary options were marketed as a simple, fast way to profit from financial markets, but the industry became infamous for fraud and unethical practices, leading to widespread regulatory crackdowns. SpotOption’s platform was a key player in the rise of these problematic brokers, which contributed to major financial losses for countless traders around the world.

1. Involvement in Binary Options Fraud: One of the biggest allegations against SpotOption is its role in enabling fraud within the binary options industry. SpotOption’s technology was widely used by brokers who engaged in deceptive practices, including manipulating trades, misrepresenting risks, and withholding customer funds. Numerous traders have reported losing significant sums of money due to the dishonest activities of brokers using SpotOption’s platform. The binary options industry, in general, became so notorious for scams that many countries banned binary options altogether.
2. Regulatory Issues and Shutdowns: Several regulatory bodies across the globe, including the United States’ Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Israel’s Securities Authority (ISA), have taken action against companies and platforms associated with binary options, including SpotOption. The adverse attention has significantly tarnished SpotOption’s reputation, forcing the company to shut down its binary options division after regulatory crackdowns, most notably in Israel, where binary options were outlawed due to their fraudulent nature.
3. Blockchain Scam Allegations: In recent years, SpotOption has been linked to new ventures in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space, raising concerns about whether the company is shifting its focus to another unregulated market. Reports on platforms like Forex Peace Army suggest that SpotOption may be attempting to re-enter the financial markets through blockchain-based products, despite its controversial past in binary options. Critics have warned that this could be an attempt to exploit the largely unregulated nature of the blockchain industry to continue engaging in unethical practices.
4. Censorship of Negative News and Reviews: SpotOption has been accused of engaging in tactics to suppress negative reviews and complaints from former clients and whistleblowers. Traders who lost money through brokers using SpotOption’s technology have reported difficulty in getting their grievances heard, with some alleging that their complaints were removed from online forums and review platforms. This has led to suspicions that SpotOption is actively working to control its online narrative and hide its involvement in the widespread fraud that characterized the binary options industry.
5. Legal and Financial Disputes: In addition to regulatory crackdowns, SpotOption has faced numerous legal challenges and financial disputes. Former clients, business partners, and traders have filed lawsuits against the company, accusing it of facilitating fraudulent activities. Documents detailing these disputes, including court filings and regulatory investigations, point to a concerted effort by SpotOption to avoid accountability for the financial harm caused by brokers using its platform.
6. Manipulation of Trade Outcomes: Another serious allegation against SpotOption relates to its platform’s potential for manipulating trade outcomes. Some traders claimed that SpotOption’s technology was designed to give brokers unfair advantages, such as delaying order execution or providing inaccurate price feeds. These manipulative practices often resulted in traders losing money, leading to accusations that SpotOption’s platform was inherently rigged to benefit brokers rather than provide a fair trading environment.
7. Reputation Management Efforts: SpotOption has been linked to attempts to manage its online reputation by promoting positive content and downplaying its controversial history. As complaints against the company mounted, SpotOption reportedly took steps to improve its public image, including posting fabricated positive reviews and testimonials while aggressively pursuing the removal of negative feedback on forums such as Forex Peace Army. These efforts to manipulate public perception are part of the broader attempt to erase or obscure SpotOption’s problematic past.

SpotOption’s involvement in the binary options industry, its links to fraud, regulatory action, and ongoing allegations related to blockchain scams paint a troubling picture. The company’s apparent efforts to suppress damaging news and manipulate its public image only add to concerns about its long-term credibility. While it may have shifted focus to blockchain and cryptocurrency, the underlying issues related to its operations in the binary options world continue to haunt SpotOption, raising red flags for investors and traders alike.

Only SpotOption benefits from this crime.

Since the fake copyright takedown notices were designed to remove negative content for SpotOption from Google, we assume SpotOption or someone associated with SpotOption is behind this scam. It is often a fly-by-night Online Reputation agency working on behalf of SpotOption. In this case, SpotOption, 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.

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How do we counteract this malpractice?

Once we ascertain the involvement of SpotOption (or actors working on behalf of SpotOption), we will inform SpotOption of our findings via Electronic Mail.

Our preliminary assessment suggests that SpotOption may have engaged a third-party reputation management agency or expert, which, either independently or under direct authorization from SpotOption, initiated efforts to remove adverse online content, including potentially fraudulent DMCA takedown requests. We will extend an opportunity to SpotOption 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 –

1. Inform Google about the fraud committed against them.
2. Inform the victims of the fake DMCA about their websites.
3. Inform relevant law enforcement agencies
4. File counter-notices on Google to reinstate the ‘removed’ content
5. 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 SpotOption 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 SpotOption made such efforts to hide something online, it seems fit to ensure that this article and our original review of SpotOption, including but not limited to user contributions, remain a permanent record for anyone interested in SpotOption.

A case perfect for the Streisand effect…

Potential Consequences for SpotOption

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 SpotOption Committing a Cyber Crime?

Yes, it seems so. SpotOption 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. SpotOption 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 SpotOption 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. SpotOption 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 SpotOption purport this DMCA Fraud?

As an integral part of this scheme, the ‘reputation management’ company hired by SpotOption 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, SpotOption either premeditated actions or were unaware of the consequences. Despite hiring an agency to make Google disregard any negative information about SpotOption, 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. SpotOption is in great company ….

Ironically, the manipulation tactics used to remove public-interest information from the Internet are backfiring on SpotOption, which is now associated with the worst of this world.

Here are some of the specimens that share the internet space with SpotOption –

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

What else is SpotOption hiding?

Click here to visit the Google Search page for ‘SpotOption’. 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 SpotOption 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.

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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

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Many thanks to FakeDMCA.com and Lumen for providing access to their database.

Photos and Illustrations provided by DALL-E 3 – “a representation of SpotOption censoring the internet and committing cyber crimes.”

• Our investigative report on SpotOption’s efforts to suppress online speech is significant, as it raises serious concerns about its integrity. The findings suggest that SpotOption 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 SpotOption for a comment or rebuttal regarding this investigation. It will strongly suggest they were behind the takedown attempt if they remain silent.

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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.