People keep asking us why we are so convinced that Payvision BV, a subsidiary of ING Bank NV, and a supervised Dutch payment institution is liable for millions of losses suffered by thousands of innocent fraud victims between 2013 and 2019. In addition, we are also asked why we believe that the Dutch supervisory authority (DNB) and the Dutch prosecutors failed to adhere to the rule of law and, in our opinion, are a disgrace.
Join our understanding of Payvision`s activities:
Since its founding in 2002 by Rudolf Booker, Payvision focused on facilitating payment transactions for high-risk merchants in the Card-Not-Present (CNP) business. In 2011/2012, the Dutch supervisory authority granted Payvision a payment license, allowing it to process card transactions for Mastercard and VISA. Payment accounts were provided by ING Bank NV and Deutsche Bank. From that point onward, Payvision began working with scammers in the binary options industry.
Based on information provided by Rudolf BOOKER to Austrian law enforcement in 2019, transaction records from Barak’s and Lenhoff’s criminal files, and leaked details from a DNB on-site audit report of Payvision’s compliance department (covering the years 2016–2021), we have a strong understanding of the extent of fraud signals that Payvision deliberately ignored, enabling scammers to steal money from thousands of European victims.
We are creating a timeline that highlights the fraud signals Payvision ignored each year from 2015 to 2018. However, 2018 is by far the most shocking, clearly exposing the absolute ruthlessness of Payvision, ING Bank NV (being the banking partner of Payvision, and the Dutch authorities (being in charge of supervising ING and Payvision).
Timeline in 2018 - as an example!
Fraud warning from the Compliance department:
In January 2018, Joris Greeuw (Head of Payvision´s Compliance Department) in London already has a bad feeling about Gpay Ltd, a company that offers crypto binary options products and has an opaque ownership structure with Bulgarian owners but Israeli contacts. The company refuses to provide financial documents. Joris Greuww recommends the management in Amsterdam to reject the binary option trader GPAY Ltd due to lack of transparency.
Warnings from European supervisory authorities about BARAK’s fraud platforms get published:
On 30 March 2018, the Austrian Financial Market Authority published an investor warning regarding the platform OptionStarsGlobal with the operating company New Markets S.A. (OptionStarsGlobal) Novasage Chambers, Level 2 CCCS BuildDefendant to 3), Beach Road, Apio Republic of Samoa and pointed out that the company is not authorised to offer banking transactions or investment services that require a licence in Austria.
On 9 April 2018, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published an investor warning regarding the website www. safemarkets.com with the operating company AlmaMarket Ltd, UK for offering unlicensed financial services.
Payvision ignores its own compliance department and the warning messages
In mid-April 2018, Payvision nevertheless started processing card payments for the fraud platform xtraderfx and cryptopoint.
Further warnings are published about BARAK’s fraud platforms:
On 14 May 2018, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published an investor warning about the website www.optionstarsglobal.com, and the operating company xxx, for offering unlicensed financial services to UK citizens and having already received fraud reports.
On 23 May 2018, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) warned against Gpay/Cryptopoint.
On 25 May 2018, the UK FCA[1] issued a warning to investors about Barak’s Cool Markets Ltd and its Golden Markets fraud scheme;
On 7 June 2018, the UK FCA issued a public warning to investors about Barak’s GPay Limited and its website xtraderfx.
Chargeback rates start to explode
The chargeback rates of the fraud platforms of xtraderfx and optionstarsglobal at Payvision amount to more than 3% per month and thus massively exceed the prescribed chargeback rates of Mastercard and VISA (1%).
Compliance department goes into escalation mode:
In June 2018, Greeuw and his colleagues go into escalation mode due to the alerts, but Gpay doesn’t want to show where the money is coming from. Greeuw has had enough. “We need to put a stop to them as soon as possible,” he writes to one of his team members by email at the end of June: “Block all new transactions and withhold the funds”.
Payvision begins processing an additional BARAK fraud platform
In June 2018, Payvision begins processing transactions for another BARAK fraud platform: goldenmarkets and processed a total volume of € 5 million up to January 2019 for this fraudulent trading website.
Events in July 2018
In mid-July 2018, Payvision began processing transactions for safemarkets, another fraud platform operated by BARAK (total volume processed by January 2019: € 4.8 million). The merchant onboarded again was a pure shell company, no financial records, strawmen (mainly homeless people) as managing directors and contracting parties for Payvision.
On 19 July 2018, Greeuw was overruled by the management (BOOKER), which released all assets. Just a few weeks later, Joris Greeuw left the company. A total of more than € 37 million (2018: € 36.4 million; and € 1 million in 2019) was processed for this company.
On 24 July 2018, a new agreement was signed between Payvision and Gpay Ltd for all of Barak’s fraud platforms. The processing fees and the chargeback fees got increased. The agreement also included a three-year minimum commitment for a monthly turnover of 4 million euros for all fraud systems operated by BARAK: cryptopoint, xtraderfx, safemarkets, goldenmarkets.
The merchant category code “6211” appears in the agreement. The “MCC” (Merchant Category Code) shown in the new contract named the code “6211”. The use of this code for a merchant required the holding of a MIFID II licence under the rules of the credit card companies. None of the fraud platforms covered by the agreement held a MIFID II licence to offer financial instruments to retail investors in Europe.
Summary
To summarise, Payvision BV (a subsidiary of ING Bank NV) under the leadership of Rudolf BOOKER and under the supervision of DNB processed a total of € 52.2 million alone in customer funds from January 2018 up to January 2019 despite massive fraud signals at the beginning of 2018.
So what about the Rule of Law in the Netherlands?
As of the beginning of April 2024 the Dutch prosecutor published the information that the criminal case against BOOKER is closed for a fine of € 330k.
The prosecutor neither approached the German nor the Austrian prosecutor that worked on the BARAK/LENHOFF case. Evidently no need for close criminal investigation was necessary. But due to court records we know that the Dutch prosecutor in charge exchanged phone messages with BOOKER´s lawyer (one of the most expensive in Amsterdam) during the ongoing criminal investigation (?).
When EFRI approached the DNB as well as the Dutch prosecutor for help for the thousands of innocent European victims from BARAK/LENHOFF and BOOKER, we got rejected (for more details refer to our petition.)
Both authorities denied any access to the files collected about the Payvision case, making it harder or impossible for the victims to substantiate their legal case against Payvision/ING.
Evidently no need to support fraud victims and no application of the Rule of Law for Payvision/BOOKER/ING Bank NV in the Netherlands. Just a shame!
