Cyprus financial regulator CySEC has informed that that it has come to its attention that an unknown company based in the Caribbean seems to be presenting itself as various bodies, including CySEC and the US regulator CFTC, for the purpose of conducting illegal transactions.
Specifically, the unknown company is illegally using the name and logo of CySEC, as well as other untruthful contact information, falsely presenting itself as CySEC (or, occasionally, the CFTC). The company then contacts clients of various entities to which CySEC or the CFTC has imposed fines, promising to “assist” the said investors to be compensated for damages incurred, in exchange for a “legal fee”.
We had previously reported on similar scams, including one where fraudsters were contacting US clients of binary options broker Banc de Binary pretending to be SEC officials, after the broker was hit with an $11 million SEC fine for illegal activity with US traders. The fraudsters tried to convince those clients to pay them a fee to facilitate their settlement payout.
CySEC itself has issued similar warnings in the past (such as in June 2016 and November 2015), whereby scammers using cysec.info email addresses tried to convince clients of regulated brokers to pay taxes and other fees to bank accounts they had designated.
As regards the current Caribbean based scam, CySEC would like to stress that it is not connected in any way with the above mentioned company or individuals that are behind it, and that it never sends unsolicited correspondence to investors or members of the public requesting their personal and/or bank details and/or that they make any sort of financial transaction.
Further, CySEC does not authorize, verify, monitor, or is in any way involved in payments between natural or legal entities or any public or private agencies.
CySEC urges the public to remain vigilant regarding such unsolicited communication, and in case they receive any that appears to be from CySEC but was not initiated by the recipient of such communication, and appears to ask for the transfer or payment of any amount, to confirm the authenticity of the communication by contacting [email protected] before taking any action.
Also, CySEC urges the members of the public that believe they may have already received such suspect communication to contact CySEC at [email protected].