The Spanish Financial Markets Authority CNMV had already warned against the FinmaxFX scam in October 2020. The scam is operated under the domain www.finmaxfx.com by Max Capital Limited in Vanuatu and Gatelinas UAB in Lithuania. The offshore entity Max Capital is licensed by the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission (VFSC). However, this offshore license does not authorize the broker to operate in other regulatory regimes. Based on our review, we qualify FinmaxFX as a scam designed to defraud. As payment facilitators for the scam, we have discovered Webmoney, VLoad, advcash, and Aveia. The illegal active broker is still active, as are the payment facilitators.
The payment processors are connected to the FinmaxFX broker through Pay360‘s SECPAy payment gateway (www.pay360.com). Pay360 is the trading name of capita plc (www.capita.com) registered in the United Kingdom.
It is amazing that three regulated financial institutions are acting as payment facilitators for the illegal activities of FinmaxFX:
- VLoad (www.vload.com) is Global Primex Limited‘s trading name, a company licensed by the Financial Services Commission in Mauritius. VLoad operates in Europe through its Polish subsidiary Global Primex Sp. z o.o. The Global Primex Group is managed and controlled by Hubert Grzoszewski of Poland (Companies House).
- advcash or ADV (www.advcash.gi) is the trading name of Advanced Cash Limited, a company registered in Belize with a license from the Belize Internet Financial Services Commission (IFS), which is not valid in Europe. ADV offers FIAT and crypto payment services. The latter in a partnership with crypto exchange Binance.
- Aveia (www.aveia-ps.com) acts as an intermediary for payments made through advcash. Aveia is operated by Aveia Ltd, a company registered in the UK, London, and is managed and controlled by Russian Andrei Suslin (Companies House).
Payment processors (unregulated and regulated) who knowingly and willingly support illegal business or scams with their services are guilty of aiding and abetting fraud and money laundering. Unfortunately, many payment processors in the cyberfinance segment – FinTechs or PayTechs – make a lot of money by supporting cybercrime activities.
