Binary Option Scams

On 22^nd May 2019 one of our clients will be represented in the High Court in London in a case involving Access Corporate Ltd, a money mule which collected investment money from investors on behalf of binary option scams. One of these companies was operating under the trading name of StratXMarkets.

Binary Option scams were widespread between 2015 to 2018 before financial regulators around the world took action to make this form of trading a regulated activity. Most of the companies offering these trades were scam companies. Many of them claimed to be incorporated in the Marshall Islands although there is no evidence to back up whether any of those companies actually exist. The Marshall Islands is a highly secretive jurisdiction. 

The lack of information on the companies made opening bank accounts difficult which is why many of them used money mules. Money mules are individuals or companies which are prepared to allow their bank accounts to take in investors’ money on behalf of the binary option scam companies. They then pass that money on to the scam companies or to another money mule which is also part of the chain. Money mules are playing a risky game because they are accessories to fraud and can be prosecuted.

We have several of these money mules in our sights and are having some success in tracing them and taking them to task. Investors often believe that once a binary option scam company has disappeared they have no possibility of ever finding them and recovering their money. That is not always the case. They often leave a trail. It is not a quick and easy process to trace these people but in many cases it can be done.

The owner of Access Corporate Ltd, Mr Derrick Williams, is a wealthy individual with a house near London valued at £1.8m and a villa in Spain. It is unclear how he made his money, but we think we know how he made some of it…..