Until spring 2018 the German Almo Markets VIP GmbH accepted funds from private persons on its bank accounts for the sole purpose of transferring these funds to offshore companies operating FX, CFD, and crypto scams. Among these scams facilitated by Almo Markets VIP have been www.53capitaltrade.com, www.YesOption.com, www.yestrading.com, www.tradegbp.com, www.tradedax.com as well as www.coinbrokerz.com. Almo Markets VIP vanished. As did all the scam sites. And with them the money. BaFin missed some time, we guess!
A long-gone offender
Almo Markets VIP GmbH was established in June 2017 as a shelf company and started its scam-facilitating operations under the management of Andrzej Waszkiewicz in July 2017. Already in January 2018 the company filed for a voluntary wind-up and was consequently dissolved in May 2018. Why the BaFin issued a cease-and-desist order against a long-gone company more remains a mystery. It’s not the first time anyway.
Sorry, dangerous approach
Compared to other regulators such as FCA, CNMV, or Consob, the German BaFin is anyway very slow when it comes to investor warnings. It hardly ever warns about scam sites that attack German consumers. A warning from BaFin regularly comes only if a German company is discovered as an operator or illegal payment processor. Sorry, but this is in our humble opinion a completely wrong approach and counterintuitive to investor protection.
