Recently Simona Weinglass provided an overview in the Times of Israel of the ongoing lawsuits against the Israeli binary options operator Scams. Increasingly, foreigners also go to Israel and sue the scammers in their home turf which is to be ssen as Ground Zero for be global binary options fraud. Among those sued were the operators of the binary options scams Tradorax (TDorax) and the facilitating boiler rooms in Bulgaria. FinTelegram has reported about this international scam several times.
According to the latest information from Simona Weinglass, a lawsuit against the Tradorax (TDorax) perpetrators was settled outside the court. However, there are many more defrauded parties looking out for the perpetrators to recover their funds. For these, we hold here again the key data and provide additional background information.
Key Data Table Tradorex Scheme
Role or Function |
Entity, brand or individual |
| Brands: | Tradorax, TDorax |
| Related Brands: | TraderVC, KayaFX, UProFX, NovaTrades |
| Beneficial Owner: | Per Gunnar Astrom (Sweden) |
| Beneficial Owner Entity: | AM Capital Ltd (RMI) |
| Website Operators: | Alpa Capital House Ltd (UK), BetaTech EOOD (Bulgaria) |
| Boiler Room Entity: | Rax Media Ltd (Bulgaria), РАКС МЕДИА ООД, renamed into Mercure Group |
| Boiler Room Individuals: | Jack Henry Wydgoski (Belgium/Israel), Avi Itzkovich (aka Avi Itzkovitz) |
| Legal Opinion: | Moshe Strugano (Israel) |
| Payment Services Provider: | Payotech Ltd renamed Fintech N.V. Ltd (Israel) dba Payobin (Israel) |
| Bank Accounts: | Czeska Sporitelna (Czech Republic), TBI Bank (Bulgaria |
Beneficial Owners of brand and boiler rooms
In the context of the Tradorax scam and all other broker scams, it is important to understand that the beneficial owners of the online platform (domain) on the one hand and the beneficial owners of the attacking boiler rooms behind the online platforms were typically different individuals.
The beneficial owner and operator of the illegal and fraudulent online platform www.tradorax.com were the Swedish citizen Per Gunnar Astrom. The European Funds Recovery Initiative (EFRI), among others, filed a criminal complaint against this Per Gunnar Astrom with the responsible public prosecutor’s office in Malmö, Sweden. Astrom operated the platform through its companies AM Capital Ltd (RMI), Alpha Capital House Ltd (UK) and BetaTech Ltd (Bulgaria).
The beneficial owners behind the Bulgarian boiler room Rax Media Ltd were the Israeli Avi Itzkovitz (aka Avi Itzkovich) and the Israeli-Belgian citizen Jack Henry Wydgodski.
In this context, it is also important to understand that the various scams and boiler rooms operated by the Israelis were closely interwoven. An important scam hub for this was Sofia, Bulgaria. The individual scams and boiler rooms, for example, exchanged or sold client-victim data. For example, Tradorax client-victims suddenly received calls from agents trying to switch them to other scams like TraderVC or KayaFX. The trading with client-victim data was a very important element of the global binary options fraud industry until 2018.
Boiler Rooms and Payment Services Providers
The Bulgarian boiler rooms behind Tradorax, such as Rax Media Ltd or ABC Global Ltd, are (were) operated by Israeli attackers and have operated many other scams such as TraderVC, KayaFX, KontoFX or UProFX. These Boiler Rooms are indeed the worst perpetrators. This can also be seen in the US accusation against the Israeli Boiler Room operator Yukom Communications, who operated the scams BinaryBook and BigOption.
Defrauded victims should, therefore, take action against the operators of the respective scam trading sites and against the boiler rooms behind them and the facilitating payment service providers. The payment service providers involved in the Tradorax case were the Israeli fintech company Payotech Ltd (now Fintech N.V. Ltd) via its online platform Payobin.
Since the ban of the binary options and the worldwide fraud became known, the operators disappear. For example, the operator of the Bulgarian boiler room behind Tradorax, Rax Media Ltd, has been renamed Mercure Group Ltd. In May 2018 the company was officially sold to the Serbian Stratorija Semilovic. The former Israeli managers Daniel Cohen, Or Tal Shlomai, Maor Ben-Zvi, Jonathan Boris Grinfeld, or Yael Fuks have disappeared.