More than half a dozen websites that securities regulators alleged stole money from novice investors in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere have one thing in common: They all used Wirecard AG, the German technology company that collapsed after an alleged multibillion dollar fraud of its own.
The websites, which specialized in binary options, all-or-nothing bets on financial markets, collected investors’ money via Wirecard’s card payments network, according to internal documents seen by The Wall Street Journal and former company executives. In one instance, a then-senior Wirecard executive helped set up a separate payments company that stood between investment websites and payments systems such as Wirecard, according to an ex-employee of the separate payments company. The setup helped the investment websites operate with less scrutiny from credit-card networks that monitor transactions, according to the person and a civil lawsuit filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
A Call to Protect People and Nature! Thread to Watch/read, T'h'a'c'k'e'r Pass, Nevada: