Europol Posts Crackdown on € 15M Binary Options Scam Gang

Europol announced on Monday that law enforcement and judicial authorities from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, the Netherlands and Ukraine, supported by Europol and Eurojust, has teamed up to take down a binary options fraud ring, which used 250 domains and two call centres to lure German investors into making transactions worth a total of at least € 15 million.

According to the official press release, the criminal group has been operating from May 2019 and September 2021, behind an online trading platform, based in Ukraine, with a call centre set up in Bulgaria. The approximately 100 employees of the two call centres, located in Sofia, contacted “clients” and advertised deceptive financial services in the field of binary options under the guise of financial advisers. To undertake the scam, the call centre employees had scripts containing predefined conversations and key messaging to convince clients to release more funds.

Initial profits shown in the user interface encouraged the clients to invest large sums of money. However, clients did not receive payment of their winnings or credit balance once they requested it. Whereas, Europol noted that a subsequent investigation suggests that most of the employees were not aware that the company they were working for was involved in a fraud scheme.The investigation has so far led to 246 criminal proceedings across 15 German federal states. 

Europol has set up an Operational Task Force to support the cross-border investigation.