The Securities Commission of The Bahamas (SCB) is actively investigating several foreign exchange (forex) traders that are operating in The Bahamas or claim to be registered in The Bahamas, some of which have turned out to be scams akin to pyramid and Ponzi schemes, the SCB’s Executive Director Christina Rolle told Guardian Business yesterday.
“These are definitely scams,” Rolle said.
Two months ago the SCB released a public notice with a list of ten entities claiming to be licensed by the SCB.
“It has come to the attention of the commission that the entities listed may be conducting activities that are either registrable/licensable or illegal under one or more of the acts,” the notice stated.
“The commission hereby advises the public that none of these entities or their agents/representatives are registered with/licensed by the commission. Additionally, none of the listed entities has made the prerequisite applications to be registered/licensed by the commission.
“Therefore, any registrable/licensable activity conducted, in or from The Bahamas, by these entities and their agents/representatives is in violation of one or more of the acts.
“If any of these entities or their agents/representatives claim to be legally authorized or licensed to engage in any aspect of the securities industry in or from The Bahamas, they have committed an offense and are liable for criminal prosecution and/or regulatory sanctions under the relevant laws of The Bahamas.”
Rolle added yesterday, “We are actively investigating a number of these and have put out public warnings on several.”
Guardian Business understands that some Bahamians have been hit by forex schemes that are registered in other countries and operated like a pyramid scheme, allowing for forex investing through an online portal.
Wiseling Oy, a now defunct company that was set up in Finland, had several Bahamian clients’ money tied up in forex trading when it simply disappeared.
Finland’s Financial Supervisory Authority released a notice in February that Wiseling was not authorized to provide financial services in the manner that it was doing.
“The Financial Supervision Authority (FIN-FSA) has received an exceptional number of enquiries concerning the activities of Wiseling Oy,” the Finland authority said.
“Most of these enquiries have focused on the services provided by the company, the reliability of activities and authorization. The FIN-FSA considers that the company is illegally providing investment services in financial instruments without an authorization issued by the FIN-FSA.”
Rolle said pyramid or Ponzi schemes using forex eventually fail “as withdrawal demands cannot be matched with new inflows of cash”.
She added that pyramid and Ponzi schemes were made illegal in The Bahamas after the government passed the Financial and Corporate Service Providers Act, 2020.
The post SCB actively investigating forex schemes appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.
source https://thenassauguardian.com/scb-actively-investigating-forex-schemes/
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