Four billion. It’s staggering the amount that have lost the French investors since 2010 because of fraud in online trading. The figure was given on Thursday morning, the Paris prosecutor himself, François Molins, who briefly abandoned the fight against terrorism to participate in a joint press conference of the Financial Markets Authority (AMF), policeman banks, ACPR, and management of fraud, the DGCCRF. For years the AMF multiplies communication operations to try to prevent the French from being trapped. But for now, the authorities are struggling to curb the phenomenon.
What is it? The affected websites mainly offer two types of investments. Either it is to buy and sell currencies on the Forex, the foreign exchange market. Either they are “binary options” taken on currencies, stocks or other markets: you bet on the evolution of the asset in the short-term (30 minutes or an hour), you win the bet if the bet occurs or lose everything in otherwise pure casino! In both cases, the losses are common and can be huge, much larger than the initial investment.
Harassment and misleading advertising
Some major players in the Forex is regulated in France (Saxo Bank) or the UK (IG Markets, FXCM). But most online brokers are flown covertly from Israel, which has made this industry specialty, and are registered in Cyprus, which is little stingy on business practices. Since an EU Directive implemented in 2007, simply hold the approval of a European authority for the right to offer its services across the continent. Without finally forget the many illegal sites that do not hold accreditation: the blacklist of the AMF has 360
“When you call this kind of site, then you are experiencing a real telephone harassment,. interlocutor appears with a very French name and seeking a transfer from you or worse your credit card number, “said Benoit de Juvigny, the Secretary General of the AMF, which recorded 1,656 complaints from individuals last year , against 64 in 2010. the sites do not hesitate to wield the misleading advertising and to dangle unrealistic returns: thus, the Cypriot company Pegasus Capital proposed to the Livret a disappointed now paying 0.75%, a “Plan B “12% based on binary options.
” We get to four or five block unauthorized websites per year but it is very difficult to provide evidence to initiate proceedings concedes Benoît de Juvigny . As the sites regulated in Cyprus, we put enormous pressure on our counterpart, the CySEC. We got penalties ranging from 100,000 to 300,000 euros. Unfortunately, it seems that sites pay and continue to function as before. “Among those singled include EZTrader or 24 option … respectively sponsors of AS Monaco and Olympique Lyonnais” Here with that our football clubs combine “plague the number two of the MFA, which counts on the new draft Michel Sapin law to curb advertising on risky financial products.
related Sites to organized crime
even worse, some of these sites are fictional and only meant to attract pigeons: the funds are not even invested in the markets and end up directly in the pockets of crooks “these. sites are linked to organized crime, with highly structured teams and powerful laundering mechanisms “, said Francois Molins. 50 cases, involving at least 500 identified victims are currently treated by the Paris prosecutor, two resulted in the opening of a judicial inquiry.
the prosecutor spoke of an ongoing operation this week in Israel that led to five searches and fifteen interviews or witness statements. This is, in fact, a recently revealed case by the JDD , led by Justice Aude Buresi and on a scam at least 105 million euros. “I want to emphasize the excellent cooperation with the authorities and the Israeli police,” Molins said. An outlet for the less diplomatic, investigators regularly complaining of the lack of enthusiasm of their Israeli counterparts.
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