Italy’s Companies and Exchange Commission (CONSOB) has ordered the blocking of access to six new websites that offer financial services/financial products illegally.

Five of these are illegal financial intermediation websites and one website offers financial products in the absence of a prospectus.

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 websites targeted by the latest Consob orders are:

• “Stocket” (website www.stocket.pro);
• “LLCapitalFX” (website https://llcapitalfx.cc and related page https://client.llcapitalfx.cc);
• “RussellGroupFX” (website https://russellgroupfxx.com and related pages https://webtrader.russellgroupfxx.com, https://wt.russellgroupfxx.com and https://client.russellgroupfxx.com);
• “Aifmd” (website https://aifmd.xyz and related page https://live.aifmd.xyz);
• “LevictousLTD.co” (website https://levictousltd.co and related page https://client.levictousltd.co);
• “Valemorelimited” (website https://valemorelimited.com).

The number of illegal websites blacked out since July 2019, when Consob got the power to order that the websites of fraudulent financial intermediaries are blocked, has thus risen to 1,104. Earlier in June 2024, the regulator ordered the blocking of access to four unauthorised investment websites.

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 in order 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.