Friday, November 22, 2024

Research Update on Estonian crypto payment processor and scam-facilitator Woodstocks

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Over the years, we have learned that public (open) investigations evolve. Typically, after publishing initial reports or Requests 4 Information (R4I), we receive additional information from whistleblowers and victims. With the new information, we continuously update the reports. Therefore, it has often seemed like a mosaic of information for our readers to piece together. We try to avoid this Mosaic Approach in the future. Therefore, here is a new-form update on the licensed Estonian crypto payment processor Woodstocks OÜ d/b/a Coinmond and FMA Crypto.

We became aware of Woodstocks a few weeks ago when we discovered the company as the operator of the FMA Crypto scam. We also identified the Estonian entity as an illegal payment processor for bank wires of victims in other scams. Therefore, in our initial report, we covered Woodstocks not as an operator of the licensed crypto exchange CoinMond, but as part of the so-called Trade Com Racket.

Banking partners

Woodstocks bank acount statement GlobalNetInt

FIU-licensed Woodstocks OÜ, currently d/b/a CoinMond (www.coinmond.com), has a wide variety of banking relationships. Among them are several Lithuanian institutions such as GlobalNetInt (GNI) or Finolita Unio. In GNI‘s KYC records, Woodstocks is listed as the operator of the website www.fmacrypto.com. This site was part (it is now offline) of the FMA Crypto broker scam of the so-called Trade Com Racket.

Woodstocks also has an account with the Lithuanian Finolita Unio (www.finolita.com), a regulated institution that was recently linked to the Wirecard scandal by the Financial Times (read our report here). Allegedly, more than €100M of Wirecard money disappeared via this fintech. However. Woodstocks used the bank account at Finolita Unio to process deposits to the broker scam GlobalSpotFX through it. According to our findings, this scam also belongs to Trade Com Racket.

Network table

EntityJurisdictionregulatedRemarks
CoinMondEstoniaFIUCrypto exchange operated by Woodstocks.
FMA CryptoEstonianoBroker scam operated by Woodstocks, part of the Trade Com Racket
GlobalSpotFXEstonianoWoodstocks processed deposits of victims for this broker scam; GlobalSpotFX is part of the Trade Com Racket.
Trade Com Racketn/anoNetwork of broker scams of which Woodstocks is part of.
GlobalNetInt UABLithuaniaBank of LithuaniaPart of the MoneyNetint Group.
Finolita Unio UABLithuaniaBank of LithuaniaPart of the Singapore Senjo Group.
Trust Payments (Malta) LimitedMaltaMFSAPreviously Secure Trading Financial Services Limited.
B2BX DIGITAL EXCHANGE OÜEstoniaFIUd/b/a B2BX, UBO Ivan Nikolajev (Russia/Estonia).
Decta LimitedUKFCAUBOs Marks Andrejevs (Latvia) and Jevgenijs Godunovs (Latvia).
Bitstamp Europe S.A.LuxembourgCSSFLeading European crypto exchange.

Beneficial owners

Woodstocks director Marianna Charalampous

According to official records, Cypriot Marianna Charalampous, born in February 1979, is both a director and the sole beneficial owner. However, we do not believe that Marianna is actually the Beneficial Owner of Woodstocks, but only a Nominee Shareholder.

Woodstocks appears to have a link to the Safe Currency crypto exchange (www.safecurrency.com). In Woodstocks‘ official KYC documents, several links to Safe Currency, which UK-registered Safe Currency LLP operates, are provided.