Italy’s Companies and Exchange Commission (CONSOB) today announced it has issued orders for the blocking of access to five unauthorized investment websites.

The websites targeted by the latest Consob orders are:

• “Daxton-Italia” (website https://daxton-italia.com and associated page https://client.daxton-italia.com);
• “Inmarket24” (websites www.inmarket24.com and www.inmarket24.info and the associated page https://client.inmarket24.com);
• “ICloudFX” (website https://icloudfx.com and associated page https://webtrader.icloudfx.com);
• “Ambrosiafx” (websites https://ambrosiafx.com and https://client.ambrosiafx.com).

This brings the total number of websites blocked by Consob since July 2019 – when the Authority was granted the power to order the blocking of websites belonging to unauthorised financial intermediaries – to 1,834. Of these, 235 belong to websites involved in crypto-related activities.

Internet service providers operating in Italy are currently taking steps to block access to the websites. For technical reasons, it may take a few days for the blocking to be implemented.

Consob notes the evolving nature of deceptive practices that exploit the Internet to steal users’ money and personal data: there has been an increase in the use of new tools, such as emails and ‘cloned’ websites, fake profiles of politicians and celebrities, and content generated by artificial intelligence systems – such as images, voices or videos – with the aim of persuading investors to make harmful investment decisions.