Recently, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued an investor warning against the offshore activities of the CySEC-regulated IC Markets group, which operates in Europe through various domains and websites via offshore entities in Seychelles and the Bahamas. The FCA has now issued another warning against the scam broker International Markets a/k/a IC Markets, which operates with the domain https://internationalcapital-markets.com. The websites all work with the IC Markets logo and credentials.
Key Data
| Brand | IC Markets |
| Domains | www.icmarkets.eu, www.icmarkets.com, www.icmarkets.sc www.icmarketpro.com www.icm-market.com www.i-cmarketz.com www.icmarkets.ru www.marketpro.com www.icmarketspartners.com www.internationalcapital-markets.com |
| Legal entities | Raw Trading Ltd (Seychelles) IC Markets (EU) Ltd (Cyprus) IKBK Holdings Ltd (Cyprus) IC Markets Ltd (Bahamas) International Capital Markets Pty Ltd (Australia) |
| Related individuals | Andrew Budzinski Linda Mackey Crystal McClain-Turnquest |
| Regulatory regimes | CySEC in Cyprus, license no 362/18 FSA in Seychelles, license no SD018 Securities Commission of the Bahamas, license no SIA-F212 ASIC in Australia with license no 335692 |
| Payment processors | JPMorgan |
| Warnings | Consob, UK FCA I, UK FCA II |
IC Markets Narrative
The beneficial owner and founder of IC Markets, registered and regulated in Cyprus, is Andrew Budzinski. He is also listed as a representative in IC Markets Ltd‘s offshore entity in the Bahamas. There Linda Mackey is registered as CEO and Crystal McClain-Turnquest as the Compliance Officer.
According to Wikipedia, Andrew Budzinski is Australia’s 69th richest person and referred to IC Markets as “one of Australia’s most remarkable financial success stories in recent years.”
In October 2020, the Italian Consob blocked the websites of IC Markets for Italian consumers due to continuous violations of the regulatory provisions. In the same month, FC Inter Milan terminated the sleeve sponsorship contract with IC Markets because the broker allegedly failed to fulfill its contractual obligations. IC Markets has filed a ‘wrongful termination lawsuit’ against the club seeking reimbursement of the money they invested. Read our report here.
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We currently do not know with certainty whether all the domains and websites mentioned by the FCA are actually operated through the IC Markets group. Look and feel are very similar; they use the same logo and share some other credentials, and the individual websites claim to belong to this group. The FCA evidently is convinced that the IC Markets group operates this conglomerate of domains and websites.
Please let us know if you have any information about the IC Markets group.
