FBI May Hold 15,000 Israelis Criminally Responsible Over Binary Options

Israeli Haaratz reported today that the FBI wants to rigorously work through the binary option fraud schemes. The U.S. authorities would not only attack the managers of the fraud operators but also their employees. They are treated as co-conspirators in these fraud schemes, which have cheated hundreds of thousands of investors around the world out of billions of dollars.

FinTelegram already reported on the prosecution of the former CEO of the binary options provider YUKOM COMMUNICATION, Lee ELBAZ and three managers of the company. The U.S. attorney already filed the respective indictments charging them with binary options fraud. The trials are expected to take place within the next couple of months. The women worked in marketing or customer relations at YUKOM, a company controlled by Yossi HERZOG, who will probably not be traveling to the United States for fear of facing prosecution. Herzog was questioned by an FBI delegation in Israel last year.

This could be bad news for the some 15,000 Israelis who worked in the industry, before it was outlawed in Israel. The recent FBI approach shows that the enforcement agency considers all employees potentially guilty of offenses that carry a maximum 20 year jail term.

According to the authorities, every employee of a fraud scheme has to be considered a co-conspirator in helping to cheat investors. This includes employees in the boiler rooms as well as the online marketing experts who lure customers to the illegal broker sites. Furthermore, it also involves employees in the finance department that support the money laundering activities in these schemes.

As the Haaratz rightfully pointed out, Israel was considered a binary options powerhouse, with some 150-200 companies taking in as much as $5 billion a day. The Israeli firms were known for stinging customers around the world. Local employees took home salaries totaling tens of thousands of shekels a month. Many Israeli companies and its employees moved from Israel into countries in Eastern Europe such as Bulgaria and Ukraine.

Report Illegal Broker

Illegally operating broker schemes and their boiler rooms are part of fast-growing global cybercrime activities. Millions of investors are defrauded by those broker sites losing billions of euros every year. Hence, it is important to warn investors of such illicit sites. If you are a victim of an illegally operating broker site such as Tradeinvest90, Option888, XMarkets, XTraderFX, GToptions, StoxMarket, Bluetrading, FXTrade777, or KayaFX please file your claim and report activities via our whistleblower system: