As of: December 22nd, 2021 2:42 pm
Two suspects were arrested as part of a nationwide raid against the operators of the website “24option.com”. The men are accused of commercial investment fraud.
There have been two arrests for alleged investment fraud on the Internet platform “24option.com”. The 30-year-old men arrested yesterday are accused of having faked stock market trading on the website they operate for at least five years and to have cheated 107 investors of around six million euros, according to the Cologne police.
The prices shown were manipulated in such a way that the investors had no chance of winning and ultimately suffered a total loss.
As part of a nationwide raid, four apartments in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main and Ostheim vor der Rhön were searched. The investigators confiscated numerous accounts and secured data carriers such as cell phones, company servers and computers.
“International Criminal Organization”
In July 2018 the ARD reported in detail about the fraudulent scam used by the site operator. The managing directors and team leaders named there then relocated ARD-Information to Cyprus. One of those arrested is said to be Kevin S., who referred to himself as the “Binary King”.
The accused are said to belong to an international criminal organization that is said to have deceived investors across Europe, according to the Cologne police. When trading securities on the online platform “24option.com”, the suspects had promised immense profits in the high double-digit percentage range. Customers were apparently given the opportunity to bet on falling or rising prices of currencies, stocks, crypto currencies and raw materials by means of so-called “binary options”.
Boris Becker was also used as an advertising medium.
In order to strengthen trust in the online platform, the operators had also used celebrities such as Boris Becker as advertising partners. In addition, the website of a television program broadcast in Germany was used, in which start-up companies advertise investment capital.
Call center relocated to Cyprus
After registering on the website, interested customers were looked after personally. For this purpose, 60 employees, who pretended to be trade experts, are said to have worked in a call center at Cologne’s Rheinhafen.
According to the police, this was relocated to Cyprus in June 2020, but has since been closed by the local banking supervisory authorities on suspicion of fraud. The platform’s payment transactions were processed by the service provider Wirecard, which has since collapsed due to balance sheet fraud.
One trail leads to Israel
The investigation into this case also led to Israel. On August 10, the Israeli investigative authorities searched several home and business addresses, including the address of the Werdench company in Tel Aviv, where the ARD– stock exchange editorial in January 2018 had researched with a covert camera. During the searches, large amounts of data and assets worth twelve million euros were confiscated.