The Spanish regulator CNMV has issued a warning against the broker scam IGC Trades (www.igctrades.com). The operator is allegedly International Markets Management Ltd which we already know from other scams like FXGbp Markets. We also found out during today’s review that InvestArea (https://investarea.com) scam also belongs to this network. We have discovered Paypound, Kryptova, Neobanq, and others as payment processors. Stay far away from these scams.
Key data
| Trading name | IGC Trades |
| Domain | https://igctrades.com |
| Legal entity | International Markets Management Ltd (UK) |
| Jurisdiction | United Kingdom |
| Related schemes | Latvian Racket |
| Related scams | FXGbp Markets InvestArea (Invest Area Ltd, UK) |
| Related individuals | Urmas Lemsalu, Ivans Gilejs |
| Payment processors | LAX.Exchange, Paypound, Neobanq, Kryptova, ChargeMoney AvalanchePay, IsunextCashier |
| Fake regulators | SFINS (https://sfins.ch) MFA (https://mfa.org.uk) IRBEM (https://irbem.com) |
| Warnings | CNMV, Consob, BaFin |
The scam narrative
International Markets Management Ltd, registered in the UK Companies House, is controlled by the Latvian citizen Ivans Gilejs, born in April 1992. This guy is also the sole director of the company. This very same Ivans Gilejs is registered with several other companies as a director and beneficial owner, all of which were incorporated between March and November 2020. This strongly suggests the affiliation with Latvian Racket, whose companies in the UK have been established in this period.
At the checkout, there is a link to the Deposit & Withdrawal Policy of InvestArea at some payment options, which we have already reported about in connection with a warning of BaFin. Both IGC Trades and InvestArea use the same payment processors and the same fake regulators, MFA and IRBEM.
Evidently, the same cybercrime organization operates these two broker scams in this respect. It could be that the Latvian Racket is involved.
Facilitating payment processors
Our new review found that Invest Area and IGC Trades is registered as a merchant with Estonian LAX Corporate OÜ d/b/a LAX Exchange (www.lax.exchange) and the infamous scam-facilitators Paypound, Neobanq, and Kryptova Biz Ltd d/b/a Kryptova (https://kryptova.biz). We also found AvalanchePay (www.avalanchepay.com), which is integrated as a payment option in the LAX.Exchange cashier.
Finally, we identified the Hong Kong-based ChargeMoney (https://charge.money) as a facilitator.
Share information
If you have any information about IGC Trades, InvestArea, or the Latvian Racket, we would appreciate it if you could share it with us through our whistleblower system, Whistle42.
