Offshore broker LQDFX has been on our radar for about two years now. This is also because of its interesting background. The founder is the well-known fintech entrepreneur Ozan Ozerk, who founded several regulated companies in the UK, Lithuania, and other EEA jurisdictions. OpenPayd or EuroTrader are projects of Ozan Ozerk. The UK FCA has recently issued a warning against the offshore broker LQDFX, violating the EEA regimes’ regulatory requirements.
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.
The Similarweb Analysis
Most of the site’s approximately 37,000 visitors come from the United States, followed by Turkey, Similarweb says.
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).
EuroTrader is a regulated forex and CFD broker brand owned and operated by the EuroTrader Group, a group of companies owned and controlled by the fintech entrepreneur Ozan Ozerk. Until at least April 2021, the latter has also been one of the beneficial owners behind the offshore broker LQDFX. Since we published our initial report about the EuroTrader Group in April 2021 and exposed the offshore activities of the group’s CySEC-regulated entity, some changes have been made.
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.
