Tag: Cauri

FCA-regulated payment institution Cauri has been on the FinTelegram radar for some time. We reported in 2020 that Cauri was one of the payment processors for Gal Barak's cybercrime organization. Since the beginning of the year, Cauri has been subject to FCA restrictions that essentially prevent it from doing business with Russians or Russian currency. Since then, Cauri's business seems to have collapsed.

FinTelegram has discovered FCA-regulated payment institution Cauri Ltd d/b/a Cauri as a payment processor in various broker scams in recent years. Cauri is apparently controlled by Russian nationals such as Nikolai Ionkin. The FCA restricted Cauri from providing payment services to Russian citizens or legal entities in January 2023. Since then, traffic to the Cauri website has plummeted, but over 40% of its website visitors came from Russia in Q1 2023.

The Trade Com Racket is believed to have a headquarters in Albania. JPM Capitals, ProfxCredit, FMA Crypto, Coinmond, GlobalSpotFX, Spotfinex, FXonspot, and TopEuroFX are part of the racket. In January and August 2020, the UK FCA issued investor warnings against the FXonspot scam; in September 2020, the Spanish CNMV followed. The racket offers the trading app TopEuroFX for free download in the Google store. As facilitating payment processors, we have recently discovered Payecards, the Estonian Woodstock OÜ, the UK Cashaa Technologies Ltd, and Net Kantor.

GlobalSpotFX, Spotfinex, FXonspot, and TopEuroFX are associated with a Trade Com Limited, which does not appear to exist. In January and August 2020, the UK FCA issued investor warnings against the FXonspot scam; in September 2020, the Spanish CNMV. Until recently, the Google App Store offered the Spotfinex trading app. This has been renamed TopEuro FX (www.topeurofx.com) and is still available for download. As facilitating payment processors, we have discovered Payecards and Estonian Woodstock OÜ with the Lithuanian e-Money Institution Finolita Unio.