This article details the peculiar situation involving the October 2023 Tradorax binary options fraud. German authorities had detained and accused two Israelis for Tradorax investment fraud. They then go on to claim that 2300 Bitcoins were stolen from them by their old attorneys. It is currently being claimed on Twitter that Guy Yuval, one of the attorneys, owned Opal, a payment processor subject to Singaporean regulations, and used it to launder money. A whodunit has occurred.
The Trials of Tradorax and Per Gunnar Astrom
Binary Options Fraudulent Company The network of Tradorax
In October 2022, German trials against the massive binary options scheme Tradorax (shown right) began. The Israeli boiler room operators Avi Itzkovich, also known as Avi Itzkovitz, and James Henry “Jack” Wygodzki, also known as Jack Wygotzki, were charged by the authorities.
Wygodzki filed a complaint against Israeli attorneys and a broker while the two were in Germany’s pre-trial custody. He claimed that they had stolen over 2,300 Bitcoins, which are today valued at $53 million, from him. These had already been taken from their scam victims by Itzkovitz and Wygodzki.
The Israeli Lawsuit
According to Wygodzki’s lawsuit, he became afraid following Avi Itzkovitz’s arrest and sought assistance from Guy Yuval, Ori Arad, also known as Uri Arad, and Racheli Unger of the law firm Yuval Aron (website). They would have persuaded him to give them the Bitcoins, promising to sell them and give him the money in exchange.
They would have given him fictitious documents in exchange and permitted him to seek refuge in Portugal. Jack Wygodzki hoped to escape to South America from there. But that didn’t actually happen. He never received the money or the Bitcoins back. And he was taken into custody!
The Swindlers’ Attorney
Moshe Strugano’s legal choice Legal opinions were issued for Tradorax by Alpha Capital House Moshe Strugano.
Our research indicates that Wygodzki was persuaded to turn himself in to the police by Israeli lawyer Moshe Strugano, who we already know from other frauds as a consultant and who had provided legal advice for the scammers in the Tradorax scam to help their crimes. People close to Wygodzki allegedly told Moshe Strugano that the German case against him was not very strong.
Alagos Limited (Gibraltar) first introduced the Tradorax platform in 2013 under the www.tradorax.com domain. Following the initial alerts to the public, Tradorax changed its company. The binary options fraud was purportedly run by Anguilla-founded AM Capital Ltd., which then relocated to the Marshall Islands, beginning in 2015. The required legal opinions were released by Moshe Strugano.
The Disappearing Bitcoins
The reality is that Bitcoins are no longer in circulation. The brokers, Miki Hefetz, and the lawyers in question dispute all of this, saying that their goal was to work with the German authorities to secure the money. The sole goal of Wygodzki’s action would be to stop them from doing so.
In the Israeli scene, there is a report, though, that Moshe Strugano worked with the broker and the two defendant attorneys. It is believed that he will receive a portion of the “loot” in exchange. A fascinating rumour that we are unable to verify.
Per Gunnar Astrom‘s Scam: After inciting users to place “fraudulent” bets on markets, the binary trading website shuts down
Thousands of people could fall for binary options scams, according to a victim’s attorney, but many of them are too ashamed to come out and acknowledge they were duped.
It looks like a website that was suspected of defrauding savers out of thousands of pounds by luring them into “fraudulent” internet trading schemes has shut down.
Until recently, the website Tradorax had encouraged savers to place seemingly straightforward wagers on the value of stocks or currencies.
Lawyers and savers claimed to The Independent earlier this year that hundreds of people, mostly seniors, were not receiving returns for their investments on websites like Tradorax, and that dozens of people’s accounts were being frozen.
Although a growing percentage of these sites, also referred to as binary options trading platforms, are fraudulent, many of them are genuine.
Speaking to The Independent in July, attorneys and personal finance specialists claimed that even the lawful platforms are not under the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) oversight, making it impossible for the government to manage the sector.
The UK gaming Commission regulates some binary options trading sites, but only if the company has gaming equipment situated in the nation.
Numerous people with contact addresses provided on the website that were outside of the UK included Tradorax.
James Hellis, a pensioner and former independent IT contractor, stated that he had invested around £60,000 with Tradorax in total. He claimed that over the course of several months, a person posing as a “broker” had been assigned to trade on his behalf and make a number of investments.
He said that he submitted a withdrawal request to the site in December, citing his pension fund as the source of the majority of his funds. He asserts that his account thereafter seems to have been blocked after the request was turned down.
Mr. Hellis filed a chargeback dispute with his banks since he had used credit cards to pay for some of the investments, but they were unwilling to assist him.
In addition, he claimed to have reported the issue to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which was established by Parliament to address issues with financial services, and Action Fraud Police, the national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime that works in tandem with the NFIB within the City of London Police. Neither could provide him assistance.
The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), a division of the City of London Police, stated that it received 305 reports of binary options scams in the year ending in May 2016, which is the most recent period for which data is available. That amounts to 27 reports per month.
Experts have also stated that because of regulatory changes made in April 2015 that make it easier to access funds, pensioners would be more inclined to try trading.
Pensioners can now withdraw their entire pension as a lump sum under the new regulations, which also remove the requirement for them to purchase an annuity. The idea of trading binary options can be alluring, especially when one finds themselves suddenly in possession of large sums of money and other investing options offer relatively modest returns.
“Pension freedoms have opened up a can of worms,” remarks Kate Smith, Aegon’s head of pensions. According to her, some con artists target seniors in particular.
“They are taking advantage of people’s weaknesses.”
Data released by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in July indicates that 53% of pension pots accessed since the implementation of the new regulations had been fully withdrawn. Furthermore, the watchdog has expressed a number of concerns recently regarding the use of the money by individuals.
The next year will see the publication of a comprehensive report on the problems with pension freedom.
Tradorax “ceased all activities due to regulatory issues and no longer provides its services to clients,” according to a message posted on the company’s website on Wednesday.
