The warnings
The UK Watchdog FCA issued an investor warning against the scam broker LincolnFX (www.lincolnfx.capital) in January 2020 and the Spanish regulator CNMV issued another warning in February 2020. The scam is operated by Lincolnfx.capital Ltd and a clone of an FCA-authorized financial institution. It’s still online on August 5, 2020. The FinTelegram Research team has received documents from some of the scam’s victims and thus has taken a closer look. Consequently, facilitating payment processors like Plus Exchange or Titan Payments as well as interesting connections have been identified.
The LincolnFX‘s scam is also performed via brokerage apps in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. The LincolnFX platforms can be traced back to a company called “The Change Ltd.” Connected with The Change Ltd is the Australian Zurich Group PTY. Ltd which operates its own broker scam ZurixCorp under the domain www.zurixcorp.com. Lawyers in Germany have warned against ZurixCorp and The Change Ltd for some time.
Facilitating payment processors
This ZurixCorp scam broker again works with the same payment processors as LincolnFX. Both have implemented “The Change” and “Plus.exchange” as well as “Titan Payments” as payment options for its client-victims. Additionally, a platform called Paiid (www.paiid.io) is also listed as a payment processor, which in turn belongs to “The Change Ltd” according to its terms and conditions.
If you select the payment processor “The Change” in either scam, you will be led via the URL https://paymentspage.com/the-change/ to the Estonian payment processor Plus.exchange (www.plus.exchange). This crypto exchange and payment platform which used to be operated by COINHI QN OÜ (see corporate information).
If you choose Payments Titan, you will be directed to the website associated with the domain www.paymentstitan.com. Apparently, it is a Polish payment processor operated by BDIKA SP. Z.O.O. purportedly licensed by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (“KNF”) with number MIP53 / 2020. For bank transfers, BDIKA holds a bank account with the Lithuanian Epayblock UAB (IBAN LT023350090100022544). Epayblock is an e-money institution licensed in Lithuania which operates a payment platform under the domain www.epayblock.com.
The Maxigrid question
Another payment processor of the LincolnFX scam is apparently the CySEC regulated broker Maxigrid Limited. The victims of the scam have provided us with payment documents showing transfers to the Maxigrid account at a Lithuanian bank. We will continue to investigate and report on this matter. Stay tuned.
