PRESS RELEASE:
On Thursday April 2, 2009 at 10:00 AM, 28 Geneva police officers and investigators raided the offices of Advanced Currency Markets (ACM). ACM claims to be the largest online Forex broker in the World. The raid was the result of months of investigations against ACM. This investigation was initiated by MBFX’s holding company MexGroup who filed a criminal complaint against ACM last year. MexGroup is based in Mexico City, Mexico and provides financial services to clients worldwide. MBFX was one of the largest customers of ACM from 2005 to 2008.
Since MBFX traders are also skilled programmers, they suspected that ACM was engaging in illegal activities when the trading platform functions showed signs of manipulation. When challenged by MBFX traders, ACM staff directed the blame to their Liquidity Provider Banks, RBS, UBS, etc. (their Straight Through Processing platform which was supposedly feeding trades directly into the clearing banks). ACM insisted they had done nothing wrong. Statements of three ACM executives, questioned in preliminary hearings by the police, insisted that ACM was a completely legal business, while the evidence shows the complete opposite. MexGroup presented the court with sufficient evidence of criminal activities to prompt a court ordered raid of the ACM offices.
MBFX attempted to meet with the owners of ACM and reach an out-of-court settlement before presenting the police with additional incriminating evidence of ACM’s wrongdoing. ACM refused to discuss the matter. The Swiss law firm representing MBFX filed the additional evidence with the court. In retaliation ACM filed a claim of blackmail and fabrication of documents on April 1st. The court ordered the raid on April 2nd in a dramatic showing that the court was not giving ACM’s claims any validity. MBFX had given the court evidence which far outweighed that which was provided by ACM.
During the raid an expert provided by MexGroup guided the Geneva authorities through ACM’s back office trading platform, revealing hidden manipulation tools which ACM routinely used to sweep an investors account empty within a matter of seconds without regard to the actual market. The investigators were able to see this illegal manipulation tool in action on the day of the raid. The expert clearly demonstrated to them how it was actually done. To obtain undeniable evidence the police used the manipulation tools of the platform to manually inflict a margin call on a live account of a customer. The police also witnessed other manipulation tools in action and saw that ACM was only holding approximately 10% of client positions on STP, as opposed to 100% they had claimed and have advertised all along.
MexGroup provided expert witnesses to give evidence to the criminal court that ACM’s trading platform was deliberately designed to steal from its customers. The expert called it “theft by design”.
ACM was once owned in part by Refco. Refco was closed down in 2005 due to alleged illegal activities in the United States. ACM’s largest shareholder, Lloyd La Marca, was said to have fled the scene of the raid. The other ACM officers, Alexandre Axarlis and Nick Bang, have refused to cooperate with the authorities and were taken in for questioning.
The ACM Geneva staff received an internal mailing on Friday, asking them to consider the case closed, work normally and report any questions from the outside directly to the management. The staff was told by the management that the police raid was a simple exercise by authorities and there is nothing to worry about. They were also instructed to tell customers that the media had blown the raid out of proportion and all was back to business as usual.
MBFX has by Petition proposed to the to the Swiss court that it appoint an emergency crisis team to immediately take over ACM trading platform management to protect all ACM customers. The court ordered an overseer appointed by the Swiss authorities to insure that all current customers be immediately placed on STP and stop the dealing desk from trading against the customers as if they were a Casino. This will prevent the closing down or liquidation of ACM and serve to protect the Millions of Dollars of thousands of customer’s investment funds.
MBFX has also petitioned the court to freeze ACM capital in a sufficient amount to cover the claim of theft made by MBFX until a settlement is reached, or the case goes to trial and a verdict is rendered.
MBFX expert traders and programmers are on stand-by waiting to provide full assistance to the authorities.
The criminal investigation into ACM trading practices continues.
JC Harris
Lead Counsel
MBFX
