In the age of binary options and CFDs, vast global forex scam schemes emerged. Many of them started out between 2010 and 2012 with the peak time in or around 2015. It took lawmakers and regulators some time to identify new phenomena and find the appropriate measures to fight them. Regulators started 2014 with their warnings binary options warnings which were the beginning of the end of the forex gold rush. It took regulators another 3 years to finally prohibit binary options. Between 2012 and 2017 some globally acting forex scammers defrauded hundreds of thousands of retail investors. The Lau Global Services Corp is one of those criminal organization that produced a stream of illegal binary options, forex and crypto trading styles. The requests additional information to establish an EFRI funds recovery campaign.
The FSM Smart Broker SchemeWhistleblowers delivered information to that the illegal broker scheme FSM Smart (www.fsmsmart.com) has been aggressively acquiring clients via their Serbian boiler room Upmarket d.o.o. The sole shareholder of this boiler room is the Cyprus-registered Benrich Holdings Ltd. Director of both companies is the Cyprus resident Armin Ordodary. Upmarkt is only one of several boiler rooms of the Lau Global Services Corp scheme. According to the information available to FSM Smart and Armin Ordodary are part of the “Lau Scheme“.
The Serbian Upmarkt d.o.o. is only a small branch of the “Lau Scheme“. Other boiler rooms have already been located in other jurisdictions with Kiev, Ukraine, being sort of epicenter. The Russian website Forex Scam (www.forex-scam.net) identified call center addresses in Kiev, for example. Lau Global Services Corp is for sure one of the largest illegal broker schemes on this planet besides E&G Bulgaria. Despite many offshore connections, it seems that this scheme is operated in the Balkans and Ukraine.
But let’s start with FSM Smart and develop the big picture then. The illegal broker FSM Smart launched sometime early 2018. Investor warning against the FSM Smart (www.fsmsmart.com) scheme so far:
The Serbian Upmarkt d.o.o. is only a small branch of the “Lau Scheme“. Other boiler rooms have already been located in other jurisdictions with Kiev, Ukraine, being sort of epicenter. The Russian website Forex Scam (www.forex-scam.net) identified call center addresses in Kiev, for example. Lau Global Services Corp is for sure one of the largest illegal broker schemes on this planet besides E&G Bulgaria. Despite many offshore connections, it seems that this scheme is operated in the Balkans and Ukraine.
But let’s start with FSM Smart and develop the big picture then. The illegal broker FSM Smart launched sometime early 2018. Investor warning against the FSM Smart (www.fsmsmart.com) scheme so far:
- August 2018: New Zealand Financial Markets Authority (FMA) issued a warning against FSM Smart in Summer 2018.
- Nov 2018: Switzerland’s financial market supervisory authority FINMA issued a warning against FSM Smart;
- Nov 2018: the Canadian watchdog in Manitoba (MSC) issued an investor warning against FSM Smart;
The FSM Smart contact address is said to be in Switzerland: Hertensteinstrasse 51, 6004 Luzern.
The Lau Global Services Network
The FSM Smart schemes and its people are evidently closely connected to other scam schemes such as MTI Markets (www.mtimarkets.com). This illegal broker was allegedly operated by a Lau Global Services Corp which operated some more illegal broker schemes:
- MXTrade (www.mxtrade.com)
- LGS Corp (www.lgs-corp.com)
- TradingBanks (www.tradingbanks.com)
- Trade12 (www.trade12.com)
- MTI Markets (www.mtimarkets.com)
- Grizzly (www.grizzly-ltd.com)
The team has been able to identify a variety of firms connected with the Lau Global Services Group:
- Lau Global Services Corp (Belize)
- Upmarkt d.o.o. (Serbia)
- Exo Capital Markets Ltd (Marshall Islands)
- Global Fin Services Ltd (UK)
- MTI Investments LLC or MTI Markets Ltd (Marshall Islands)
- Grizzly Ltd (Malta)
- R Capital Solutions Ltd (Cyprus)
- Benrich Holdings Ltd (Cyprus)
- Eyar Financial Corp Limited (Vanatu)
- SIAO Ltd (Cyprus)
The companies mostly have no (or no longer) a website and/or social media presence. The Cyprus resident Armin Ordodary seems to play an important role in the “Lau Scheme”. All the websites and social media presences he is directly connected with are offline and vanished into thin air in the last couple of month. Just to mention his SIAO Ltd. The question is why?
The brands and companies associated with Lau Global Services Corp received many warnings from regulators in different jurisdictions:
- Aug 2015: Italian CONSOB issued an investor warning against Lau Global Services and MXTrade;
- Sept 2015: Cyprus watchdog CySec issued an investor warning against Lau Global Services and MXTrade;
- April 2016: Belgian FSMA issued an investor warning in April 2016
- Nov 2016: Australian ASIC issued an investor warning against MXTrade;
- Nov 2016: New Zealands FMA issued an investor warning against EXO Capital Markets Ltd trading as Trade12;
- Nov 2017: Guernsey regulatore issued an investor warning against Exo Capital Markets Ltd trading as Trade12
- And many more for the differend trading styles (domains/brands)
Most of the illegal broker sites of this network are offline now but the Facebook page of Lau Global Service Corp is still available. Allegedly, MXTrade used to be a brand owned and operated by R Capital Solutions Limited, a financial services company registered in Cyprus (HE329922) and authorized and regulated by the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission under license number 246/14. Purportedly, the MXTrade brand and clients were transferred to Lau Global Services in 2015. In a respective statement, however, R Capital Solutions denies that it ever had connections with MXTrade:
Reading through some forums, however, it seems that until mid-2015 R Captial Solutions was indeed involved with MXTrader. They has been provided with Emails that seem to show that R Capital Solutions actually operated MXTrader until mid-2015.
According to Offshore Leaks Database, Lau Global Services is also a shareholder of the Malta-based Grizzly Ltd which used to act as payment services operator for those illegal and fraudulent broker schemes. One can see this on an archived website of MTI Markets, for example. The Israeli Shlomo Matan Shalom Avshalom is registered as director in this Grizzly Ltd. According to different sources and forums, this Grizzly Ltd owned some own illegal trading brands too and was an active element in “Lau Scheme”.
Usually, the legal entities connected with illegal broker schemes frequently change to mislead clients, authorities, and Google. Especially, the front shell companies typically managed by so-called monkeys are changing with high frequency.
People Identified In The Network
The identified people in the FSMSmart network are Cyrpus resident Armin Ordodary, allegedly a former employee of Windsor Brokers, Ali Mahmoudi and Mathew Bradley. Armin Ordodary, born in Jan 1991, is connected with several forex trading domains which he registered in 2103 and 2014. He also is the director of the Estonian Bythos Yachts Management OÜ.
Currently, we are not able to judge whether Armin Ordodary was one of the masterminds of the scheme or one of the lieutenants in Cyprus. As a matter of fact, we have been able to establish his connection to companies, projects, and activities in the illegal broker environment. He is connected with the FOREX services provider SIAO Ltd and the Nepcore project. Furthermore, we know that he is the director of the Serbian boiler room Upmarkt which served FSM Smart Via Nepcore he provided marketing services to the portfolio of illegal trading styles of the “Lau Scheme”.
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