A few days ago the European Funds Recovery Initiative (EFRI) announced the launch of its EFRI VELTYCO Campaign. Looking at the numbers of involved investors and criminal complaints, it’s not just another funds recovery campaign. On the contrary – it is a very special one. There is a public-listed company in the UK which allegedly is sort of a hub for a cybercrime network around illegally operating online broker sites. Hence, this may be a very important campaign to call out the people associated with this cybercrime network targeting retail investors in the European Union.
A Competent Board
When it comes to the EFRI VELTYCO funds recovery campaign, one has certainly to look at the board and the management of the company. VELTYCO’s chairman Gilles OHANA (LinkedIn profile) is a FCA-registered corporate finance and capital markets specialist, with over 19 years’ experience of working in the City of London. He was a Partner and Head of Corporate Finance and Capital Markets at Sunrise Brokers LLP. Hence, Gilles OHANA is certainly an expert when it comes to securities, brokerage, and regulatory issues.
The Dutch citizen Marcel NOORDELOOS (LinkedIn profile) actually is the company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO). NOORDELOOS is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), used to work for PricewaterhouseCoopers for nine years, and hence is to be called an expert when it comes to accounting according to IFRS requirements, disclosure and compliance issues. Being the CFO, he is responsible for the communication with auditors, investors, supervisory authorities, and the London Stock Exchange. As a matter of fact, he is doing public investor presentations as you can see from the video below:
Promotion Of Illegal Broker Sites
VELTYCO formally bills its services as “online marketing”. This may sound rather harmless, but it is the key to defrauding investors. In fact, VELTYCO acquires clients and client funds for illegal broker platforms such as Option888,
Under the agreement, Options888 will have exclusive marketing rights and a participation in revenue generated by all new customers to ZoomtraderGlobal, an option trading platform.
VELTYCO press release, Sept 22, 2016
Thus, VELTYCO is facilitating fraud using the huge databases and boiler rooms of its network of related companies. These activities have been carried out with knowledge of the potential illegality of the activity. The management of VELTYCO must have been aware of this because of the many public warnings – including many from the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). There is no chance that the experienced board would have missed out on these warnings. Throughout 2016, 2017, and 2018 financial supervisory authorities repeatedly issued warnings against brands and companies in the VELTYCO network. Among those companies are Altair Entertainment, Capital Force, Celestial Trading,
Thus, VELTYCO is facilitating fraud using the huge databases and boiler rooms of its network of companies. These activities are carried out with knowledge of the potential illegality of the activity. The management of VELTYCO must have been aware of this because of the many public warnings – including many from the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Let’s be very clear at this point – those brokers have been acting illegally already before the ESMA ban because they have not had the required licenses for the markets they operated in. Furthermore, those broker sites have not acted in compliance with legal requirements such as segregated client accounts. Last but not least, VELTYCO and/or its main shareholders were the beneficial owners of these platforms. This potentially unlawful behavior by the VELTYCO people constitutes their liability to the authorities and the EFRI VELTYCO Funds Recovery Campaign.
Failure To Communicate Honestly
One of the tasks of the EFRI VELTYCO campaign is to identify the responsible people. Given Marcel NOORDELOOS‘ position as director and CFO, his professional track record and his in-depth knowledge about VELTYCO and its environment, it is nothing less than fair to assume that he is to be held accountable for all VELTYCO activities. In particular, he is to be held accountable for not disclosing the many offshore schemes and related-party transactions VELTYCO developed over the last 2 years around illicit online broker activities such as Option888, ZoomTraderGlobal, or
In his company presentation in February 2018, NOORDELOOS failed to disclose that many financial market supervisory authorities have already warned investors and issued cease and desist orders against Option888, TradoVest, TradeinVest90,
Evidently, VELTYCO failed to meet legal disclosure requirements and continuously misled shareholders about the real facts of its business. When asked by an investor about the ESMA decision to prohibit binary options, NOORDELOOS downplayed the issue. He explained that “binaries was a small part of the business”. This turned out to be a significant false statement. Looking at the 2017 report, it is clear that the binary options business was the main growth driver in 2017 and caused a massive financial issue for VELTYCO. NOORDELOOS statements in the meeting in February 2018 were simply false and perhaps intentionally misleading. Read our analysis of the 2017 results here.
When it comes to the EFRI VELTYCO funds recovery campaign Marcel NOORDELOOS is for sure the most important guy in the VELTYCO board to speak to.
Funds Recovery Filing
If you are a victim of one of the illegally operating VELTYCO broker sites, you can file your claim with the EFRI VELTYCO Funds Recovery Campaign.
