Israeli Court Unseals Names of Suspected Forex Scammers Arrested

A Jerusalem court has unsealed the names of the alleged four people involved in forex frauds arrested during raids conducted in October on Tel Aviv. According to The Times of Israel, Pavel Kotler, 47, of Holon; Yuri Dashevsky, 33, of Kfar Saba; Nimrod Blachman, 33, hometown unknown; and Chen Malka, 31, of Tel Aviv are suspicious of running a binary options, forex and cryptocurrency fraud that targeted German citizens.

That said, authorities from Germany are seeking their extradition to face criminal charges. The individuals were arrested in a raid pursued by the Israeli police on October 20 in a call center located in Petah Tikva, with cooperation and assistance from the German and US authorities.

The four suspects’ lawyers initially requested the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court to keep their names secret, but today, the order had been lifted. They’re accused of allegedly operating from 2015 to 2019 the websites IntegraOption, SolidCFD, TradeSolid, BitCapitalMarkets, GetFinancial, ProCapitalMarkets, NordCapitalMarkets, ProfitsTrade, FXPace, AccepTrade, and GainFinTech – responsible for scamming German citizens.

Law enforcement said that the scheme didn’t operate only from Israel but also from Georgia, Armenia, and Moldova. The alleged scammers also created a bogus website that offered fake legal assistance to the victims of their own scam under the brands ‘FXLaws’ and ‘Tradelegal.’ Prosecutors from Bamberg, Germany, stated that several Germans lost ‘millions of euros.’

Recent Police Operations Against Forex Frauds

This is part of the recent massive operations pursued by the Israeli police against forex and binary options scams.

Early in October, in a joint operation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Israel Police raided a Tel Aviv-based company. They arrested 26 Israelis for their suspected involvement in running organized financial fraud. Authorities said that they were suspected to be part of a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment scheme.

The bust was conducted after a joint investigation of the United States and Israeli authorities as the scheme targeted residents in the US. The American authorities led the investigation.