The supposed online brokers lure their potential customers with supposedly one-time offers – the money is apparently never invested.
(Photo: dpa)
Düsseldorf, Frankfurt Eleven members of a suspected group of online investment fraudsters were arrested last Tuesday. The Central Office for Cybercrime Bavaria announced on Wednesday. The alleged perpetrators are said to belong to the top management level of a criminal organization that allegedly deprived investors of alleged investments in the millions with fake online platforms.
A total of seven arrest warrants were executed in Georgia and four in Israel. 15 objects were searched. The arrests in Tbilisi and the greater Tel Aviv area were made in collaboration with local authorities. The central office Cybercrime Bayern plans to apply to the Israeli and Georgian authorities to extradite the arrested persons.
According to preliminary investigations by the Bamberg Public Prosecutor’s Office, the damage caused by the alleged perpetrators should amount to at least a double-digit million amount.
Only recently, the Central Office for Cybercrime Bavaria brought charges in a similar case, in which the suspect has to answer for commercial and gang-related fraud in more than 300 cases. The total damage here is around 8.7 million euros. The accused in this case is said to have been a leading head of a fraud gang as “Vice President Sales”, at the head of which was the man who is known by the nickname “Wolf of Sofia” – based on the character Jordan Belfort from “The Wolf of Wall Street “.
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However, the two gangs are not supposed to be related to each other. According to the investigators, this shows how much the industry has grown in recent years. The Central Office for Cybercrime Bavaria is also investigating other groups.
Trading in CFD, Forex and cryptocurrencies
The supposed online brokers lure their potential customers with supposedly unique offers and offer them the opportunity to invest in financial products via their platforms. The products include contracts for difference (CFD), currencies and cryptocurrencies, which are per se very risky and not suitable for private investors without prior knowledge.
According to the investigations of the Central Office for Cybercrime Bavaria, the collected money is not invested at all, but withdrawn directly.
Through constant calls from the alleged broker’s call centers, the victims are usually encouraged to transfer more and more amounts – often to compensate for allegedly existing losses. Tens of thousands of investors are affected by this scam, which is part of international organized cybercrime, in Germany alone.
The current case and the arrests go back to a complaint against the platform “Getfinancial” in October 2018 in Weiden in the Upper Palatinate. In the course of the investigation, the central office Cybercrime Bayern was able to locate several call centers in Georgia and thus also get to the backers in Israel. “With effective international cooperation, we are defeating cross-border online financial crime at its own pace,” says Nino Goldbeck, spokesman for the Bamberg Public Prosecutor’s Office.
“Getfinancial” is not the only platform that the Cybercrime Central Office attributes to the group of perpetrators. The other platforms apparently also include “Procapitalmarkets”, “Mycoinbanking”, “Tradesolid”, “SolidCFD” and a few others.
More: Accomplice of the “Wolf of Sofia”: Charges for online investment fraud in the millions