Ivan Grixti is a former Malta Labour Party MEP candidate and a lecturer at the Department of Accountancy at the University of Malta. He served as director of the binary options scam operator Up & Down Marketing Limited d/b/a One Two Trade (www.onetwotrade.com). Various reports show that the company scammed hundreds of victims, millions of euros. The company is registered in Malta and its registration number is C50369. Its registered address shows an empty office at 2, Geraldu Farrugia Street, Zebbug, Malta.
The scam narrative
Some victims also sued the shareholders of the company in Israel. The Times of Israel has reported about the lawsuit. Ivan Grixti acted as a frontman (monkey) for Israeli perpetrators.
Besides Maltese Up & Down Marketing, Inventiva Marketing (see picture right) is related to the One Two Trade scam, whose owners, according to various reports, were Ron Rahamin Bara and Solomon Krok among others. The COO was Gilad Hirsch; other officials included Shlomi Falcon, Yossi Eluz, and Eyal Yourista. You can find the network of individuals and entities around One Two Trade here in the Offshore Leaks Database.
Ivan Grixti (pictured left) resigned from his post in July 2018. However, under his tenure many warnings against One Two Trade from regulators across the globe were issued in 2016:
- Hong Kong’s SFC;
- Australian ASIC;
- Canadian Manitoba Securities Commission (MSC);
- CySEC issued a public warning in December 2016;
- Italian regulator Consob (Italy) blacklisted OneTwoTrade in September 2016.
Such warnings should immediately trigger an investigation by the Maltese regulatory authorities including MFSA and FIAU. They should have resulted in actions of the director Ivan Grixti in the first place. But thanks to good connections nothing happened.
The One Two Tade operator Up & Down Marketing Limited held bank accounts at Bank of Valletta (screenshot left).
The Maltese compliance issue
Malta has been placed on the grey list by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). TheShiftnews in Malta has revealed that the FIAU paid more than Eur 63,000 to selected media houses in Malta in a bid for readers to read positive stories about the agency. The FIAU officials are under pressure in Malta for failing to take the necessary action in profoundly serious cases of possible money laundering. Amongst such cases, there is Pilatus Bank. The Deputy Director of FIAU, Alfred Zammit, had signed a letter exonerating Pilatus Bank from any wrongdoings. This letter was signed after the FIAU director resigned.
The FIAU has been under fire for employing persons like Kristina Arbociute who up to a few weeks before joining the Malta authority responsible for fighting money laundering, was working at XNT Ltd. XNT was investigated by the FBI during the same time.
Despite all these warnings by international authorities, both MFSA and FIAU never took any action against Up & Down Marketing Limited or Ivan Grixti. Grixti is well known to be very close to Ministers in Malta. To add insult to injury, Ivan Grixti sits on the board of The Malta Institute of Accountants Council.
A recent court judgment of a case in Malta between Carmen Grixti and Ivan Grixti revealed that Ivan Grixti earns 13,000 euros per month according to his wife. His wife claimed this in courts – Court Case 125/2018/3. The court decision was delivered in January 2021.
Another FIAU official responsible for such investigations is FIAU’s Rudolf Muscat. Courts revelations clearly showed that Rudolf Muscat failed to properly monitor the market and allowed entities to operate without a license. The head of enforcement at MFSA, Michelle Mizzi Buontempo, who also sits on MFSA’s executive committee, has so far not given any interviews about possible investigations on Up & Down Marketing Ltd. The company has been placed into liquidation by its owners.
