Money Laundering - EFRI identifies financial crime enablers to curb cyberfraud

Criminal trials around Barak´s and Lenhoff´s criminal organizations.

The criminal organization around Gal and Marina Barak, Uwe Lenhoff, Gery Shalon, Vlad Smirnov and their service providers (call centers, marketing affiliates, payment service providers) defrauded tens of thousands of innocent retail investors with their fraudulent websites (optionstarsglobal, xtraderfx, safemarkets, cryptopoint, goldenmarkets, zoomtrader, option888, xmarkets, tradovest, tradeinvest90) during the years

July 24, 2023 No Comments

Will the Consumer Duty solve the UK payment industry issue?

In July 2022, the British FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) confirmed that it would be introducing a higher standard of customer protection, requiring regulated firms (including payment institutions and e-money companies) to put their customers’ needs first. The new “Consumer Duty” rule consists of three elements: New consumer principle. The new

April 19, 2023 1 Comment

ING´s checkered money laundering track record!

There are rumors that ING is eager to do a new settlement agreement with the Dutch authorities for the Payvision money laundering case. ING is quite experienced in doing settlement agreements for money laundering cases letting the shareholders pay the fine. But considering ING´s checkered money laundering track record it

April 17, 2023 No Comments

Acquirers are liable for enabling the Wolf of Sofia´s scams

Why are acquirers to be held accountable for illegal activities The digitalization pushed by governments worldwide and praised for its benefits in efficiency and productivity comes with high risks for consumers. Online fraud is by now the most commonly experienced crime. In England and Wales, fraud accounts for approximately 41%

April 9, 2023 No Comments

Open Letter to ING´s ESG Committee

ING ´s ESG Committee is to enforce adherence to ESG principles On March 9, 2023 the Dutch ING Groep NV published its annual report for 2022. In this annual report ING Groep NV talks a lot about social responsibility (compare the section: STAYING SAFE AND SECURE) and about the essential

March 20, 2023 No Comments

We need efficient and effective anti money laundering enforcement in Europe!

EFRI`s open letter to the European Authorities in charge of anti-money laundering. Based on our findings of the activities of some European licensed Payment Institutions and e-money institutions in the online fraud industry (in specific Payvision B.V., Wirecard Bank AG, Moneynet Int LTD) we formulated some recommendations and established an

March 9, 2023 No Comments

Another Open Letter to ING and DNB about PAYVISION!

The phasing out process of PAYVISION ends today (June 30, 2022)! On October 28, 2021, ING announced that it would start phasing out the business activities of its subsidiary PAYVISION as a payment service provider (PSP) and acquirer. According to the announcement, this was done after a thorough evaluation of

June 30, 2022 No Comments

The money flow in the scammers´ industry!

The professionalism of today’s cybercriminal organizations (in short: the scammers’ industry) correspond to the professionalism and procedures of legitimate big international corporations. Technology, development activities, human resources, accounting, finance, marketing, legal departments are carried out by different departments independently under the professional leadership of the management people hired by criminals.

March 23, 2022 No Comments

How Kobenhavns Andelskasse got hijacked by scammers!

Kobenhavns Andelskasse (a/k/a Copenhagen Cooperative Fund or KBH Andelskasse), a small Danish regulated bank, collected and transferred hundreds of millions of stolen money to boiler room scammers in 2017 and 2018 after it got hijacked by scammers. To date, EFRI represents more than 1.100 European consumers who have been

March 10, 2022 No Comments

HSBC – a dirty bank as an accomplice of big style cybercrime!

EFRI, an association based in Vienna, Austria, set up in spring 2020, by now represents more than 1,052 European consumers who were defrauded by cybercriminals. As of writing the victims lost over EUR 59.2 million in the form of investment scams also referred to as boiler room scams. HSBC, one

January 30, 2022 No Comments