Yukom Case – U.S. prosecutors and their plans for restitution payments to binary options victims in $140 million fraud scheme

The U.S. prosecutors believe that the binary options scheme perpetrated by Lee Elbaz and her co-conspirators caused losses in excess of $100 million to tens of thousands of victims worldwide. Among others, the prosecutors refer to an internal Yukom email addressed to Elbaz and her co-conspirators. It shows a total of $110,303,678 in net deposits for BinaryBook and BigOption as of May 2016. However, the U.S. prosecutors intend to offer evidence that the actual “net deposits” made by victims of the scheme exceeded $140 million.

Net Deposits and Restitution Payments

These net deposit figures represent the actual losses to individual investors—the money they sent to Yukom and its affiliates, minus any money they were able to withdraw from the scheme.

Five former Yukom employees have pleaded guilty to defrauding investors, in addition to Lee Elbaz, who was recently convicted at trial for her role in the scheme at Yukom. As part of their plea agreements restitution payments were agreed with each of these five defendants as to a loss figure, reflecting the actual loss attributable to each defendant from his or her role in the scheme.

All of these defendants may be held jointly and severally liable for restitution, they U.S. prosecutors argue. In contrast, Lee Elbaz who managed and oversaw the entire scheme, should be held liable for the entire restitution amount, an issue the government intends to fully brief in advance of Elbaz’s sentencing hearing.

Accordingly, the U.S. prosecutors request the Court to enter an order setting a date of November 7, 2019, for the government to submit a restitution schedule. This would give them the. additional time to identify victims for purposes of restitution, and to prepare a final schedule and restitution amount for the Court.