A while ago, we brought a first report on the activities of brokers brands EuroTrader and LQDFX some ago. The EuroTrader group is regulated by CySEC for its activities in the EU. However, besides that, the group operates offshore mutations via entities in the Marshall Islands and South Africa. The FinTech emperor Ozan Ozerk controls both EuroTrader and the unregulated LQDFX. The British accountant Soteris Georgiou is also registered as Ozerk’s long-time partner and accountant as the offshore entities’ beneficial owner. Here is an update.
The basics
EuroTrader is an FX brand of EuroTrade Investments RGB Ltd, based in Cyprus. The company is a CySEC licensed investment firm (CIF) with license number 279/15. CySEC has approved the domain www.eurotrader.eu. LQDFX is an FX brand operated by the unregulated offshore entity LQD Limited in the Marshall Islands. The company’s director and 30% shareholder is John Watson. LQDFX has been the subject of warnings from the Capital Markets Board of Turkey (link) and the U.S. SEC (link). In June 2017, LQDFX was actually blocked (blacked out) by the Turkish regulator.
Offhore mutations
The EuroTrader brand runs two offshore mutations with the domains www.eurotrader.com and www.eurotrader.co.za. The dot-com mutation is operated by EuroTrade Global Ltd in the Marshall Islands. The dot-co-za mutation is operated by Eurotrade SA (Pty) Ltd in South Africa. It is a subsidiary of the CySEC-regulated Eurotrade Investments RGB Ltd. The dot-co.za website claims, that the South African entity would be regulated by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) in South Africa under FSP No 44351. However, according to the FSCA register directory, this license number belongs to Technology Hub (Pty) Ltd.
All three broker mutations – EuroTrader.eu, EuroTrader.com, and EuroTrader.co.za are serviced through the same support structure (support email is [email protected]). The processes, procedures, and texts are identical across all three mutations. It was straightforward for us with an EU address to register with the two offshore mutations. However, this should not be the case, as these do not have a license to operate in the EU. This does not seem to bother Ozan Ozerk and his team. Neither does CySEC.
The accountant
We have also learned that Ozan Ozerk runs the broker activities of EuroTrader and LQDFX together with his long-time partner Soteris Georgiou, born in November 1978. The latter is a partner in the accounting firm Georgiou & Prasanna with firms in the UK and Cyprus. The firm’s website at www.gp-ca.com is currently unavailable.
According to the information available to us, Soteris Georgiou has been the partner of Ozerk for many years and coordinates the flow of funds for Ozerk through the latter’s various entities. This includes OpenPayd and the Malta-based UPayCard.
We would like to know more about Soteris Georgiou and his activities. If you have more information, we would be happy to share it with you.
Hello FinTelegram,
Could you please explain or link an explanation as to why this structure is illegal?
As I see it the EuroTrader company with the CySec licence is legally allowed to work with all EU countries, why is that an issue that the same company has another mutation working with other Non-EU countries?
Thank You.
Hi there, you are right. A CySEC-regulated entity is allowed to offer its (approved) services to EU clients. However, it cannot offer services to EU clients via offshore entities and not approved domains. Typically, brand operators implement “offshore mutations” to circumvent regulatory frameworks in the EU, such as leverage. Unfortunately, these offshore mutations are a well-known practice applied by many CySEC-regulated investment firms.