The Singapore Police Force, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) blocked the website of an unregulated trading platform, Arotrade.
At least 40 Singapore residents filed complaints regarding Arotrade to the police. The online trading platform is allegedly registered in Belize and offers trading in CFDs for different asset classes such as stocks, foreign exchange, commodities, cryptocurrency and indices under the website “https://www.arotrade.com”. The investors transferred over S$330,000 to trade through Arotrade but subsequently unathorised trades appeared in their accounts and they experienced difficulties withdrawing their money.
Police investigation into the online trading platform revealed that Arotrade was linked to fraudulent marketing tactics such as fake news articles claiming that prominent individuals, like the Singapore’s Political Office Holders, have endorsed investments in cryptocurrency, which misled people and took them to Arotrade’s website.
Moreover, Arotrade does not hold license to deal with CFDs in securities and foreign exchange contracts and is therefore prohibited to carrying on such a business.
