Offshore broker LQDFX has been on our radar for about two years now. The founder is the well-known fintech entrepreneur Ozan Ozerk a/k/a Ozan Özerk, who founded several regulated companies in the UK, Lithuania, and other EEA jurisdictions such as OpenPayd or EuroTrader. The UK FCA has recently issued a warning against the offshore broker LQDFX, violating the EEA regimes’ regulatory requirements. The offshore broker is facilitated by the crypto payment processor Confirmo. It also accepts payment cards issued by PayRedeem.
Key Data
| Trading name | LQDFX |
| Business activity | Offshore forex and CFD broker |
| Domain | www.lqdfx.com |
| Social media | LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram |
| Legal entities | LQD LLC |
| Jurisdiction | St. Vincent & The Grenadines |
| Leverage | up to 1:500 |
| Authorization | No |
| Payment options | Credit and debit card, crypto |
| Payment processors | Confirmo, PayRedeem |
| Warnings | FCA, BCSC, SMB Turkey |
| Related individuals | Ozan Ozerk, John Watson |
LQDFX Warnings!
LQDFX is a forex brand operated by the unregulated offshore entity LQD Limited in the Marshall Islands. The company’s director and 30% shareholder is John Watson, also the domain registrant.
LQDFX has been the subject of warnings from the Capital Markets Board of Turkey (link), the US SEC, and the Canadian BCSC warning in Canada. Already in June 2017, the Turkish regulator blocked LQDFX for Turkish consumers.
In 2019, the U.S. CFTC included LQDFX in its Red List.
The Similarweb Analysis
In the 28 days before 10 Dec 2022, most of the site’s approximately 53,000 visitors came from the United States (43%), followed by Mexico (36%), the Similarweb statistics say.
The Ozan Ozerk Connection
Insiders had provided us with emails showing that the fintech entrepreneur Ozan Ozerk was involved in the set-up of LQDFX in 2015 and controlled it until at least 2017.
The company’s director and 30% shareholder is John Watson, who previously worked for HotForex. Ozan Ozerk himself hired him and/or agreed to hire him.
We do not know the ownership and control structure of LQDFX in November 2022. However, we know that LQDFX and the regulated EuroTrader Group use the same infrastructure, systems, resources, and procedures. These findings suggest shared leadership, doesn’t it?
Non-compliant LQDFX
LQDFX is not necessarily a scam, but in any case, it offers unauthorized and, thus, illegal financial products in Europe and North America. Moreover, the onboarding is not compliant with the applicable regulatory requirements in these countries.
In our review today, we could have made unlimited pre-KYC deposits to LQDFX via Bitcoins (BTC) without confirming our identity or address. Either by transferring the cryptos directly to the LQDFX address or via the crypto payment processor Confirmo (www.confirmo.net). This approach certainly violates financial laws and regulatory frameworks in most jurisdictions.
The PayRedeem payment option (which can only be used after successful KYC verification) is likely to be popular with LQDFX clients. Around 33% of the incoming referral traffic to the PayRedeem website comes from LQDFX.
Would you please read our updated report on EuroTrader Group here?
Share Information
If you have any information about LQDFX, Ozan Ozerk, or any other acting persons, please let us know via our whistleblower system, Whistle42.
