Italy’s CONSOB orders blocking of access to six new unauthorized investment websites
Italy’s Companies and Exchange Commission (CONSOB) has ordered the blocking of access to six new websites that offer financial services/financial products illegally. The latest additions include five illegal financial intermediation websites and one website through which an offer of financial products is carried out in the absence of a prospectus.
The websites targeted by the latest set of CONSOB orders are:
- Bamboozle Group LTD (website https://enerixinvest.pro and related page https://eninvest.pro);
- The Active Traders Ltd (website https://theactivetrade.com and related page https://client.theactivetrade.com);
- “Admiralfx” (website https://admiralmarket-ecn.com);
- Rever LTD/”Vexxsel” (website https://vexxsel.online and related page https://platform.vexxsel.online);
- EuropeanFX Limited (website https://europeanfx.co/ and related pages https://client.europeanfx.co/ and https://trade.europeanfx.co);
- Gold Crown Mining Limited (website www.goldcrownminingltd.com).
In issuing the orders, the Authority availed itself of the powers deriving from the “Decreto crescita” (“Growth Decree” Law no. 58 of 28 June 2019, Article no. 36, paragraph 2-terdecies), relating to the black-out 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 black-out of the website through which the illegal offer is carried out.
The number of websites blocked by Consob since July 2019, when the regulator got the power to order that the websites of fraudulent financial intermediaries be blacked out, has thus risen to 839.
The black-out of these websites by Internet service providers operating in Italy is ongoing. For technical reasons, it can take several days for the blocking to be implemented.
Consob draws investors’ attention to the importance of adopting the greatest diligence to make informed investment choices, adopting common sense behaviors, essential to safeguard their savings: these include, for websites that offer financial services, checking in advance that the operator with whom they are investing is authorized, and, for offers of financial products, that a prospectus has been published.