Philippines Police raid trading call center and arrest 474 people, while local media reports that the call center has been targeting some of the prospective clients in various countries, including New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Russia and Europe.
8 June, AtoZ Markets – A number of Israeli citizens have been arrested in the Philippines following a call center raid by the local law enforcement authorities. According to the online reports, such call centers are used by unregulated brokerages to solicit to the clients via aggressive sales techniques.
Philippines Police raid Trading Call Center and Arrest 474 employees
Local Philippines’ media reports that the call center has been targeting some of the prospective clients in various countries, including New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Russia and Europe. The law enforcement authorities have arrested eight Israeli citizens as the masterminds of the fraudulent operation.
Reportedly, the call center has been allegedly soliciting customers to trade stocks and is very similar to a boiler room operation. In addition, the online reports state that it is also possible that the operation has been working in collaboration with a Forex or Binary Options trading company.
The local media mentions the name of the company as International Branding Development Marketing Inc. The name of this entity is not related to the firm that is offering the trading service. This is a usual practice when fraudsters are setting up call centers that are aiming to sell risky financial products to inexperienced investors.
Fraudsters Claim to Have Address in the UK
Furthermore, the initial reports state that the call center has been posing to represent a London-based brokerage. It is also known that many unregulated brokers are falsely claiming to have registrations and addresses in the UK. As a result, investors are getting tricked into providing their credit card info and bank details to a fraudulent firm.
As per one of the online reports, the call center is allegedly connected with two Binary Options brands, namely, FMTrader and iTrader. The two companies shared staff members and had the same office address in Israel when police inspected the latter.
Following on this, the Israeli citizens were responsible for managing operations while the Filipino agents were speaking to clients, as per media reports.
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