Italy’s Companies and Exchange Commission (CONSOB) has issued orders for the blocking of access to five more unauthorized investment websites, taking the total to over 740.

Consob explains that these five websites abusively offer financial services/financial products: four of them are abusive financial intermediation sites and one of them is a site through which financial products are offered without a prospectus.

The latest set of orders target the following entities:

• “Alphapro FX” (website https://alphaprofx.co.uk and related page https://client.alphaprofx.co.uk);
• Eurofxsecurities Limited (website https://eurofxsecurities.com and related page http://client.eurofxsecurities.com);
• The Active Traders Ltd (website https://theactivetraders.com and related page https://client.theactivetraders.com);
• Promarketing Ltd (website https://green-capitalz.com and related page https://platform.greencapitalz-trade.com);
• Enercom AG (website www.enercom.ag and related page https://kyc.enercom.ag e https://sales.enercomg.ag)

The number of sites blacked out since July 2019, when Consob got the power to order that the websites of fraudulent financial intermediaries be blacked out, has thus risen to 741.

Consob has been regularly expanding the list of blocked websites. Last week, the Italian regulator added five websites to the list. All these websites belong to firms that offer investment services in Italy without having the necessary license to do so. Some of these entities are clones, that is, they abuse the details (name, address, etc) of licensed businesses in order to lure victims more easily.

The black-out of these websites by Internet service providers operating on Italian territory is ongoing. For technical reasons, it can take several days for the black-out to come into effect.