Exclusive: UTrade’s Aviv Talmor has jail sentence extended to 5 years in algo trading / binary options fraud
FNG Exclusive… FNG has learned that the courts in Israel have extended the jail sentence of convicted algo trading and binary options fraudster Aviv Talmor from four to five years.
Aviv Talmor was convicted back in September 2022, and then sentenced to four years in jail in January 2023. He began serving his sentence in late 2023, about a year ago.
Talmor was first indicted in 2018, and the case took its time to wind its way through the courts in Israel. Since sentencing, both the defense and prosecution have launched appeals, with the defense’s appeal being recently rejected by the court, leading to a compromise agreement between the state and the defense and prosecution attorneys that Talmor’s sentence be extended by one year, in return for the state dropping its appeals to extend his remand even further.
As part of the settlement, an additional sentence that would take be tacked on if Talmor doesn’t pay a NIS 250,000 (USD $67,000) fine he was issued as part of the original verdict was reduced, from eighteen to six months.
Aviv Talmor was convicted of fraudulently raising investor funds in the amount of NIS 77 million, or about $22 million. The original indictment against Talmor claimed that his company UTrade, which purportedly offered algo trading services, used more than half of investors’ money to expand and cover operating expenses for Talmor’s growing forex and binary options business at the time, which largely targeted investors abroad. Much of the money was reportedly transferred to the bank account of an Israeli company called Binary Call Center Ltd.
The judge who heard the case, Justice Khaled Kabub – who since has become the first Muslim member of Israel’s Supreme Court – ruled that the investors’ agreement with UTrade did not allow the company to use the customers’ funds as they pleased. It was determined that UTrade regularly used customer funds for its operational expenses, for strategic expansion of its activities (including the acquisition of foreign companies) and payment of debts of old customers, in a pyramid scheme.
