A massive FX brokerage imposter being investigated by Canadian authorities after operating for more than 5 years
The Financial Crimes unit of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has uncovered a massive scheme that allegedly extracted millions of dollars from investors. The website InvestTechFX has been uncovered to impose as an FX broker while all of the deposited funds were being wired directly to the personal accounts of Rony Spektor and Alan Zer.
According to the RCMP’s website the scheme has been spread worldwide with confirmed scam victims coming out of 10 countries and financial implications for depositors amounting to millions. The investigation reveals that the scheme has been conducted between January 1st 2008 and November 25th 2013, however as of writing the website of the company is still operational and posing to be a True ECN broker.
The RCMP goes on to explain that after opening a trading account, the funds that were wired to the company have never materialized into a single executed trade order – it was all transferred to personal accounts of Zer and Spektor. After several customers tried to withdraw funds the replies they were getting contained false and deceitful justifications for the inability of the company to honor their commitment.
Rony Spektor (left photo) and Alan Zer (right). Source: RCMP.
While we were browsing through for more information on the topic we bumped into a Forex Peace Army forum topic that has stated since April 6th 2011 that the brokerage is a confirmed scam. Several participants in the topic are claiming that they have been filing complains with Canadian authorities and posts are dating back to 2011 and even 2010. InvestTechFX has a counter-scamming statement about Forex Peace Army’s forum on its website.
Assuming that these claims are true it is stunning as to how this website kept operating for so long unnoticed by regulators and more importantly why is it still accessible. The website states that the company is providing 100% bonus on deposits and leverage is up to 1000 to 1. While these statements are an obvious sign of something wrong in the eyes of an experienced FX trader, any new traders might just consider this to be a very good deal.
The RCMP investigators have executed a search warrant at the Toronto office of the company and found and seized evidence which is associated with “boiler room” activities, which are in clear violation of regulatory norms. Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Zer and Spektor, but so far their whereabouts remain unknown.
For the full press release visit RCMP’s website.
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