Italy’s CONSOB orders blocking of access to 11 unauthorized investment websites
Italy’s Companies and Exchange Commission (CONSOB) has ordered the blocking of access to 11 new websites offering financial or crypto services without the necessary permission.
The regulator ordered the blackout of 7 abusive financial intermediation websites and 4 websites through which crypto currency services are abusively provided.
The entities targeted by the latest set of orders are:
- “Lemintero” (website https://lemintero.co);
- “Geneve Capital Invest” (website https://genevcapinvest.com and related page https://webtrader.gencapwebtrade.com);
- VT Markets Limited (websites www.vtmarkets.com and www.vtmarkets.net and related pages https://myaccount.vtmarkets.net and https://social.vtacademy.net);
- “HotMarkets” (website https://hotmarketscfd.com);
- “Fusion4Markets” (website https://fusion4markets.cc and related page https://client.fusion4markets.cc);
- “Trustfxpro” (website www.trustfxpro.com);
- “Bvoxed” (website https://bvoxed.com);
- “BeratCoin” (website https://btc6688.com);
- “Interersos/Interesosf” (websites https://interersosf.org and https://interersos.org).
In issuing the orders, the Authority made use of the powers deriving from the “Decreto crescita” (“Growth Decree”, converted by Law No. 58 of 28 June 2019) regarding the black-out of websites of abusive financial intermediaries, as well as of the powers introduced by the MiCAR (Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 and Legislative Decree No. 129 of 5 September 2024) regarding the black out of websites through which crypto currency services are provided to Italian savers in the absence of the prescribed authorizations.
The number of websites blocked since July 2019, when Consob got the power to order that the websites of fraudulent financial intermediaries be blacked out, has thus risen to 1328. Last week, the regulator ordered the blocking of access to six unauthorized websites.
The implementation of the black-out of these websites by Internet service providers is ongoing. For technical reasons, it can take several days for the blocking to come into effect.
