Italian regulator blocks more unauthorized FX and crypto websites
Italy’s Companies and Exchange Commission (CONSOB) has ordered the blackout of seven new websites that offer financial services/financial products illegally: 6 illegal financial intermediation websites and 1 website through which an offer of financial products is carried out in the absence of a prospectus.
The Authority availed itself of the powers deriving from the “Growth Decree” (Law no. 58 of 28 June 2019, Article no. 36, paragraph 2-terdecies), relating to the blackout of the sites of abusive financial intermediaries, as well as of the power introduced by the Law no. 8 of 28 February 2020 (Article no. 4, paragraph 3-bis), with reference to the blackout of the site through which the abusive offer is carried out.
The websites targeted by the latest set of Consob orders are:
- VIGO and CO LLC and 674 LLC (website https://www.galicfx.com and related page https://webtrader.galicfx.com);
- iam-ltd Ltd and FX Pubblications, INC (website https://iam-ltd.com and related page https://xvtrcv-client.com);
- “Cash Forex Group”/”Cash FX Group” (website www.cashfxgroup.com);
- Assetgroup, Inc./”Asset Group” (website https://assetgroup.xyz and related page https://webtrader.assetgroup.ltd);
- Donnybrook Consulting Ltd (websites https://neotrade.pro, https://neotrade.cc and page https://neotrade.io);
- Bit Advisory Limited (website www.bit-advisorylimited.com).
The number of websites blocked since July 2019, when Consob got the power to order that the websites of fraudulent financial intermediaries are blacked out, has thus risen to 623. Last week, the regulator ordered the blocking of access to six websites, including those operated by Eurotrade and Market Gold.
In late December 2021, Consob ordered the blackout of 28 new pages/websites that abusively offer financial services. The intervention followed a report from the Finance Police.
The black-out of the abusive websites by Internet service providers operating on Italian territory is ongoing. For technical reasons, it can take several days for the blocking to be implemented.