Originally Syndicated on May 20, 2024 @ 10:15 am
FinTelegram just provided an update on the Tradorax case, a significant binary options scam. The two main perpetrators, Avi Itzkovich and James Henry “Jack” Wygodzki have been in custody and on trial in Germany since October 2022. Wygodzki accused his former Israeli lawyer Guy Yuval of stealing almost 2,300 Bitcoins, which are currently valued at $53 million, from him in a case he filed in Germany while he awaited trial. Along with Zvi Appel, Yuval is a co-owner of Opal, a payment processor in Singapore.
Brief Story of Guy Yuval
Opal ought not to be very active. The January 2023 Similarweb statistics reveals a relatively low website visitation rate. The Opal website has had a steady decline in traffic over the past few months, reaching zero in December 2023.
Opal has been added to PayRate42’s Orange Compliance list, a cyber rating agency.
Guy Yuval would have used Opal to launder the 2,300 Bitcoins he allegedly stole, FinTelegram was notified via Twitter. We ask that you send us more information since we are unable to verify or fabricate this information at this moment.
Suspects in an Israeli-run investment scam are apprehended by European and Israeli law enforcement.
Police conducted searches and arrests on May 11 in relation to the purportedly fraudulent websites Tradorax, Tradervc, Kayafx, Kontofx, and Libramarkets in a number of different nations.
According to Europol, Israeli police last month made an unusual arrest in relation to a suspected €30 million ($36 million) investment scam.
During a cross-border “action day” on May 11, Europol reported that five individuals were detained in Bulgaria and one in Israel in relation to “a fraud scheme organised mainly by Israeli nationals.”
Earlier, five more individuals were taken into custody in Spain.
With assistance from law enforcement in Bulgaria, Israel, Latvia, North Macedonia, Poland, Spain, and Sweden, the German police spearheaded the operation.
The call centres operating out of North Macedonia and Bulgaria were part of the purported fraud scheme. The purported fraud operation resulted in losses of approximately €30 million for Europe.
The Times of Israel was informed by a person with knowledge of the inquiry that the suspects were in charge of the purportedly fraudulent internet trading platforms Tradorax, Tradervc, Kayafx, Kontofx, and Libramarkets. The websites allowed users to invest in cryptocurrency, CFDs, and binary options.
While TraderVC and Libramarkets used a software platform called Panda TS, Tradorax used the technology provided by Israel’s SpotOption, which was charged with fraud by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in April.
The criminal network allegedly used search engines and social media advertising to entice thousands of victims, according to Europol. Then, it is said that these victims were coerced into making investments in cryptocurrency, CFDs, or high-risk options. German authorities, however, claim that the money was just stolen by the alleged scammers and never really invested. To encourage victims to make additional investments, the suspects employed manipulable software that displayed investment gains.
Approximately twelve locations in Bulgaria, Israel, Poland, North Macedonia, and Sweden were searched, according to Europol. High-end cars, jewellery, real estate, electronics, and almost €2 million ($2.4 million) in cash were all seized by the police.
Images released by German police in Koblenz, who looked into the purported fraud ring, depict the thieves’ opulent working area.
The fraud gang members, who are between the ages of 32 and 65, are of German, Bulgarian, Israeli-Romanian, Polish, Danish, and Belgian nationalities, according to Koblenz police.
According to a source who spoke to The Times of Israel, the lone captured Israeli is a dual citizen of Romania and Israel and was taken into custody in Bulgaria.
According to documents obtained by the Times of Israel, Avi Itzcovich, an Israeli-Romanian national, was the Tradorax’s manager.
Itzcovich, along with an Israeli-Belgian named Jack Wygodski or Jacques Henri Wygodski, controlled a company called Raks Media in Sofia, Bulgaria. Tradorax posted job openings in 2015 for Israelis looking to move to Bulgaria to work in a call centre.
According to reports, Tradorax stopped operating in September 2017, just a few months after Tradorax was mentioned in an article about binary options scam published by Britain’s Independent.
The Israeli Knesset outlawed the selling of “binary options,” a type of financial instrument, in 2017. Numerous individuals who operated call centres out of Israel relocated their operations abroad and/or modified their business plan such that the scam now involved the sale of cryptocurrency, contracts for differences, or FX. The Times of Israel was recently informed by prosecutors in a European nation that although investment scam call centres are now dispersed throughout Europe, investigators have repeatedly discovered that the service providers on a scam website are Israeli, or that the proceeds of fraud wind up in Israeli bank accounts or in the bank accounts of individuals of Israeli origin.
Even though the internet fraud business allegedly took billions of dollars and employed thousands of individuals, Israeli prosecutors have charged very few of these perpetrators.
