Whistleblower Credits: We would like to thank our whistleblowers for their reports and insights, which help us expose scammers and their payment processors. Together we can make a difference in cyberspace. Together we are an invincible force.
In the last few weeks, we have intensified our efforts to uncover “old” broker scams like Brokerz. In the process, we discovered that the current version of Brokerz is active as a white-label solution from Israeli PandaTS with the Praxis Cashier. Brokerz is one of literally dozens of scams from the Leverate network and is managed by their boiler rooms in Albania. Some of these illegal boiler rooms use TradingCRM, owned by Ran Strauss, one of the beneficial owners and managers of the Leverate Group. We were also made aware of the report of a former employee on Trustpilot.
In recent weeks, thanks to the reports, we have received a lot of whistleblower information to complete the picture around the Leverate Group. CySEC-regulated Leverate Financial Services Ltd is only a tiny part of their business. The real business with the real money is to provide registered, unregistered and illegal brokers with technology and trading infrastructure. The TradingCRM (www.tradingcrm.com) software is part of this infrastructure and used by boiler rooms.
The TradingCRM building block
You can’t find very much information about TradingCRM. The IP addresses associated with it prove that TradingCRM is part of the Leverate network. For example, the server for the subdomain exchange.tradingcrm.com with the IP address 62.90.197.9 runs in Gadot, Israel. Likewise, one can find various subdomains that confirm involvement in scams. The domain is among the top 500,000 on Alexa (see screenshot left) and receives the most visitors from Israel, Ukraine, and Romania.
The Trustpilot Confession
The former employee claims on Trustpilot that besides Brokerz, the scams MarketRip, Traderia, Trading Dashboard, Globallixx, and more were operated in the same boiler rooms; with the mission to defraud investors. For this purpose, fake companies would have been established in Tirana, Albania.
However, we cannot verify the authenticity of the information provided on Trustpilot, but the confession of the former employee is supported by information provided by our whistleblowers. The Israeli Leverate Group is most certainly one of the largest, if not the largest, technology and infrastructure providers for the European cybercrime scene. Until recently, the group was also the provider of the huge PumaTS scam network we exposed and covered over the last couple of months.
Brokerz Update
We have also received from our whistleblowers the data on the Bulgarian operators of the Brokerz broker scam. Both
- Brokerz Biz registered in Bulgaria with Company Number 205470721, and
- All Media EOOD registered with Company Number 203873556
are controlled by Bulgarian Ani Valchanova. The fraud business is evidently doing extremely well. For 2019, All Media reported a turnover of $6.73 million. This is a very remarkable amount for Bulgaria. Yes, it is!
Feed us more information, please
If you have any information about Leverate Group, we would be grateful if you could share it with us. Stay tuned; we will keep you posted.
