The mills of justice grind slowly but they grind. This is a well-known saying, which also applies to the legal processing of broker scams from the era of binary options between 2010 and 2017. Since the end of 2017, binary options have been banned in most jurisdictions. Financial market supervisory authorities in numerous countries have highlighted the proneness of binary options to fraud and manipulation.
2018 the year of reckoning – retail investors realiz e fraud
Many of the tens of thousands of victims first realized in 2018 that they were primarily victims as clients of these binary options platforms. Most of the lawsuits and complaints in this regard have only been in commenced in 2018. In this respect, the legal procedures before civil and criminal courts will take a few more years.
The 23Traders‘ Israeli-Austrian scam beneficially owned by Hans Brabenetz and Giora Tal was one of the worse fraud platforms. It became known globally after the suicide of Canadian investor Fred Turbide. Various television stations have reported on this and thus for the first time an awareness of the fraudulent nature of binary options.
The binary options fraud industry has its center in Israel. 9 out of 10 scams are powered by Israeli individuals and companies. The beneficial owners of these scams – the ultimate attackers – are mostly based in Israel and feel safe there. Only a few small investors have filed complaints and/or advertisements in Israel so far. This changes increasingly with public perception.
Another lawsuit in Israel
Based on the reporting, FinTelegram and EFRI were contacted by victims of the 23Traders scam from all over the world. Including an investor from the UK who filed a lawsuit against the Israelis Eran Schindler and Tal Deyagi in Israel with his Israeli lawyer. FinTelegram has read the lawsuit and supports the plaintiff with appropriate information.
Schindler and Deyagi are the directors of Market Giants Ltd, which was the operator of the boiler rooms for 23Traders. In these boiler rooms, the call center agents pull the money out of the investors’ pockets with their calls and lies. The boiler rooms and their employees are the real perpetrators of the Broker Scams. They are the front runners, psychologically well trained to steal money from retail investors. The responsibility of the boiler rooms for the scams is also the reason why Lee Elbaz is currently accused in the USA. She was CEO of Israeli Yukom Communications, the operator of the boiler rooms behind the binary options scams BinaryBook and BigOption.
This UK victim deposited more than GBP 155,000 with 23Traders in 2017. His 23Traders account showed a balance of GBP 276,000, so he was actually on the winning side. At least on paper. He obviously didn’t get paid anything. Neither the deposited funds nor the profits.
Participating payment service providers
In his court application, he attached a list of the payments to 23Traders and the respective payment documents. He was asked to send his money via bank transfers and credit card transactions to various bogus companies. For example, the Polish company Fiji Capital SP ZOO.
The payment partner for credit card payments to 23Traders was the Israeli Payotech Ltd via its PayObin platform. FinTelegram has numerous records that prove that the disposition of client-victims payments happened between the boiler room operator Market Giants Ltd and Payobin. This also confirms the strategy of the legal representatives involved in this case to sue Eran Schindler, Tal Deyagi and their Market Giants Ltd as the actual perpetrators behind the 23Traders Scam.
Companies involved in 23Traders
- Market Giants Ltd (Israel) – boiler room operator
- Uranus Limited (Jersey) – offshore entity for ultimate beneficial owners
- Hermes Ventures Ltd (St. Vincent and the
Grenadins ) – domain and website owner, registered payment services merchant with Payobin Decimol Ltd (UK) – website operator- Payotech Ltd (Israel) – operator of Payobin platform and payment services provider for 23Traders
- Fiji Capital SP Zoo (Poland) – unauthorized payment services provider
People and stage names involved in 23Traders
- Hans Brabenetz (Austria) – ultimate beneficial owner
- Giora Tal (Israel) – ultimate beneficial owner
- Eran Schindler (Israel) – director of boiler room operator Market Giants Ltd
- Tal Deyagi – director of boiler room operator Market Giants Ltd
- Adi Mantel – tax lawyer, counsel to the ultimate beneficial owners
- Eyal Nachum – Payotech director involved in money dispositions with 23Traders
- Oded Jeremitsky – Payotech manager involved in money dispositions with 23Traders
- Thomas Goldman – the stage name of a Market Giants boiler room agent
- David Forbes – the stage name of a Market Giants boiler room agent
- Briant Smith – the stage name of a Market Giants boiler room agent
- Michael Green – the stage name of a Market Giants boiler room agent
- Tom Coleman – the stage name of a Market Giants boiler room agent
