FinanceFeeds today reported that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a motion for entry of default against the alleged Israeli scam broker Yossi Herzog and a number of entities and individuals involved in the fraudulent activities of his Yukom Communications Ltd. The company’s former CEO, the Israeli Lee Elbaz, was sentenced already to 22 years in prison and to pay at least $28 million in restitution to the injured parties.
The motion was filed on July 6, 2020. Previously, the court had already granted permission for the complaint to be delivered to the untraceable defendants via, among other things, advertisements in the Times of Israel. Consequently, the CFTC also carried out these publications. The service of the CFTC claim should thus have been legally effective.
The CFTC requests that the clerk of court enter default against the Israeli Yukom Communications Ltd, the Mauritius-based Linkopia Mauritius Ltd, Wirestech Limited d/b/a BigOption, WSB Investment Limited d/b/a BinaryBook, Zolarex Ltd d/b/a BinaryOnline, Yossi Herzog, and Shalom Peretz. The request is based on the defendants’ failure to answer, plead, or otherwise defend in a timely manner.
According to the CFTC’s complaint, Yossi Herzog and his co-conspirators, Kobi Cohen and Shalom Peretz, fraudulently solicited and accepted more than $103 million via the above-mentioned entities and brand in a vast binary options trading scheme. The CFTC seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, civil monetary penalties, restitution for the benefit of customers, permanent registration and trading bans, and a permanent injunction from future violations of the Commodity Exchange Act.
