EFRI Funds Recovery Campaign Against Veltyco’s Online Trading Schemes Option888, ZoomTrader, and XMarkets

FinTelegram has already been covering the online trading scams around the public-listed VELTYCO GROUP PLC for months and has warned investors. These scams include Option888, ZoomTrader, ZoomTraderGlobal, and XMarkets. Until 2018, these illegal online trading schemes were focused on binary options. Meanwhile, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has banned binary options. As did Israel and many other jurisdictions. The German BaFin just recently announced a planned permanent ban of binary options and CFDs. Consequently, theVELTYCO schemes have since then been scaled back, but have left behind thousands of defrauded investors in Europe.

Beneficial Ownership And Responsibities

With the 4th EU Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Directive published in 2017, the so-called Beneficial Owner Register was introduced. The 5th AML Directive, which came into effect in July 2018, further tightened these regulations. This new requirement of the individual states is supposed to enable the so-called Financial Intelligence Units of the individual states to communicate more efficiently with each other through central Beneficial Owner Registers in the EU member states and thus fight more efficiently against organized white-collar crime. The fight against Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Terrorist Financing (CFT) is a top priority for states around the world.

Managing directors and shareholders of legal entities are obliged to report the beneficial owners of the relevant legal entities to the relevant registry authority. In the definition of this EU Directive, beneficial owners are all natural persons who ultimately own or control a legal entity. This includes, in particular, individuals who – directly or indirectly – control more than 25% of the voting rights or who exercise control over a specific company through other structures. In case of doubt, senior executives are also considered to be beneficial owners.

With this regulation, the authorities want to improve the cooperation between the Financial Intelligence Units (FIU) in the individual EU member states and make the fight against criminal organizations more efficient.

Conclusion #1: VELTYCO demonstrates how important this AML guideline is. They have set up a scheme of concealment that will allow thousands of investors to be cheated via online trading sites and anonymous offshore companies. The fact is that VELTYCO and its people (management and shareholders) are the beneficial owners of these fraud schemes and have to take responsibility for them.

Conclusion #2: The managers of the company, as well as the shareholders and consultants, are liable for the violations of the AML regulations.

The Veltyco Scheme And The AML Directive

VELTYCO, listed on the London Stock Exchange, has systematically lied to the public about its actual activities and ownership since it was founded in 2016 by the German Uwe LENHOFF. Officially, the company is “only” a marketing company that supports other companies in the gambling, sports betting and online brokerage sectors in acquiring clients and their funds. In fact, however, VELTYCO and the shareholders and managers acting there are the economic owners of those “online trading websites” which harmed and cheated unsophisticated customers.

There is hardly another listed company in the world that has negated the provisions of the AML/CFT guidelines and misled its shareholders, customers, and partners at such a high level. VELTYCO is comparable to those “questionable Panama companies” that led to the introduction of the 5th Money Laundering Directive. In fact, individual companies of the VELTYCO Group can also be found in the Panama Papers, such as ALTAIR ENTERTAINMENT or PAYIFIC LTD.

Below we have compiled a list of offshore companies and related websites together with lawyers and authorities. These are backed by VELTYCO and its people as the beneficial owners.

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There is not a single press release of the listed VELTYCO in which even one of the many warnings of financial market authorities against Option888, ZoomTrader, ZoomTraderGlobal or XMarkets is pointed out. The ownership conditions have been in any case consistently concealed. Thus, VELTYCO has not only been violating the current AML directives but also capital market laws.

Conclusion #3: VELTYCO and the persons acting there have disregarded their legal obligations and failed to inform their shareholders and the public about the actual circumstances of their business activities. VELTYCO has benefited greatly from the funds of fraudulent investors.

EFRI Funds Recovery Campaign

The EFRI Funds Recovery campaign intends to reclaim funds from illegal broker sites of the VELTYCO-Group (Option888, XMarkets, ZoomTrader, ZoomTraderGlobal). So in case you have been hurt by any of these binary options websites, pls register with us: