The Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) recently issued an investor warning against Swiss Invest FX and the alleged operator Swiss Investment Corporation Ltd. FinTelegram looked at the scheme in an initial analysis. We do have reason to believe that this new set of scams is connected with the FSM Smart scheme. Here are the first findings.
The Lexbond Systems scam broker group
The Swiss Invest FX website (www.swissinvestfx.com) is operated by the same group of people behind the brands FXRoyal (www.fxroyal.co.uk), ZurichCorporation (www.zurichcorporation.com) and others. It is once again a scheme that is settled on the Marshall Islands. The following companies are allegedly involved in the scam:
- Swiss Investment Corporation Ltd – Marshall Islands
- Lexbond Systems Ltd – UK
- LS Systems Ltd – address in Zurich, Switzerland
- Redal Ltd
- Crowd Tech Ltd – Cyprus (regulated)
Apparently, the UK-registered Lexbond Systems Limited is the registered merchant with payment services providers for all brands (schemes) involved. So far our FinTelegram Research Team has been able to uncover the following brands (illegal and fraudulent broker)
- Swiss Invest FX – www.swissinvestfx.com
- FXRoyal – www.fxroyal.co.uk
- ZurichCorporation – www.zurichcorporation.com
- 4xRoyal – www.4xroyal.com
- Tradezone 24 – www.tradezone24.com
- JPmorgan24 – www.jpmorgan24.com
- CapitalTechFX – www.capitaltechfx.com
- AirfinancePro – www.airfinancepro.com
We are pretty sure that these are not all brands involved in this Lexbond Systems scheme named after the merchant registered as payment services hub with the involved PSPs.
A FSM Smart connection?
There is another connection to the FSM Smart broker scam via the domain FXRoyal.co.uk which has been registered via the German hosting provider Hetzner Online GmbH. The very same IP address 88.198.65.45 of FXRoyal is also used by other broker scams. While we are not yet claiming that FSM Smart of Armin Ordodary and these newly exposed schemes around Lexbond Systems are part of the same racket we keep on working with this hypothesis.
Part of our hypothesis is that FSM Smart and Lexbond Systems sites are actually working with the white (grey) label solution provided by Broker Technologies. We keep on researching and will provide updates on the verification or falsification of our hypothesis.
Payment Services Provider VoguePay
On the payment processing side, VoguePay is involved, which also serves as a payment service provider for numerous other broker scams. Another FinTelegram report on the vast Zoo Scam Broker Network uncovered that involvement of VoguePay as PSP.
The merchant registered with VoguePay in the Swiss Invest FX scheme the Lexbond Systems through which the schemes’ client payments are processed across their different brands (see screenshot below).
The involvement of VoguePay, registered in Nigeria, in these scams is all the more astonishing as the company is also based in London. VoguePay is located in the startup center of Level39 in the Canada Tower in Canary Wharf and a member of this London fintech startup community.
FXRoyal offers a payment option via Bitcoins (BTC) which have to be purchased via the platform IndaCoin (www.indacoin.com) by credit card. This IndaCoin Limited is registered in the UK and is controlled by the Russian Stanislav Kosorukuv. The company does not have a license from the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Report broker scams
Illegally operating broker schemes and their boiler rooms are part of fast-growing global cybercrime activities. Millions of investors are defrauded by those broker sites losing billions of euros every year. Hence, it is important to warn investors of such illicit sites. If you are a victim of an illegally operating broker site such as Tradeinvest90, Option888,
