Scam Reporters
Sergeant Major
- Messages
- 650
This thread is about forgotten scams, history and archives. It covers early EU days of Forex and CFD scams, between 2014 and early 2017, just before the infamous binary options exodus from Israel (thank you Ms Simona Weinglass and the Times of Israel crew). But this one is not a well recorded history, at least not connected to display a bigger picture. Nevertheless, it existed, its victims exist even today and have no justice to this day. This thread is sort of a tribute to them (no matter what scam they fell for) and aims to make a permanent record of scam flow on FPA and find a spot where brand owners, operators, nominees and boiler room staff cross paths. hope We some legal authority will wake up from its coziness and slumber, have a look into it and just maybe trigger an investigation Meanwhile, forgotten victims will keep waiting, with barely any hope. With the way EU regulators were acting, Europe was the sweetest bite of the cake for many scammers, for a decade at least. Hopefully this starts to change this year. Let's begin.
Royal Pip (www.royalpip.com , now closed and defunct) was a classic Forex broker, owned and operated by notorious, though regulated, Novox Capital of Cyprus (registrar link). FPA reviews (link) were...well, let's say not that bad, more-less. Skimming of the top a bit, a problem here and there, standard things-no big deal. Happens all the time in Retail Forex space. We wouldn't call it a scam explicitly, rather quite bad and unfair broker. Novox will be later on associated to numerous big-time scams, but that's another story, for another thread. Royal Pip way operated by CySEC (link) and FCA regulated Novox Capital (fca link), but call-center activities were outsourced, as they usually are. Time to present the boiler rooms commissioned to work on Royal Pip brand, at least three identified.
Presenting you now a company called SMARDIS LTD from Israel, company registrar: link (Hod HaSharon, Israel, company reg.no. 514897354), official website nowhere to be found (?). Owner/operator of the Israeli Smardis Ltd, as well as another 2 alike companies in the Netherlands (Smardis EU BV and Smardis Holding BV Amsterdam) is one Mr Oren Giditz, an Israeli citizen (link to all 3 Smardis entities link). The two NL entities are closed as of end 2019 and were founded around 2014, holding stake in one another, basically a Smardis Ltd Amsterdam-based outpost(s). It's not uncommon, really. Smardis is, per Mr Giditz own words, a BPO/call-center outsourcing company, serving many happy Forex/Crypto/CFD clients. Apparently, he says they are one of the best (here: link 1, link 2, link 3 etc). Ok, noted. So they are in the 'industry', therefore surely know all the international rules of the 'game'. We pause here to state our principle that not every Israel based broker/BPO is by default a shady one or a scam. No one should be labeled, until proven!
In April 2015, Smardis Ltd opened another company in the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, called SMARDIS SR D.O.O. Beograd, company details here: link
Authorized representative is Mr Oren Giditz, address is the same as some other city boiler rooms, looks like a favorite office space (Airport City business complex, built by Israeli investors decade ago, just to note here). The actual ownership of local Smardis Sr d.o.o goes to Smardis Ltd Israel, public registrar link extracts:
Btw, Smardis Ltd Israel was not a BPO business from the start. It seems, in 2011 (apparently the founding year) Smardis Israel/Mr Giditz had a different business, food industry with production of pecans additives (not that it matters for this thread, but here: link, link).
Smardis SR d.o.o. had numerous job advertisements for hiring agents by Smardis HR people (LinkedIn profile of job post email contact with @royalpip.com extension), that openly displayed Royal Pip brand as a Forex trade platform that agents would work on, so beyond any doubt, it is safe to state that Mr Gidit'z Smardis Ltd operated Royal Pip via Smardis SR d.o.o. And why wouldn't they, any way? It was a FCA/CySEC fully regulated brand! Job adds: link, link, link. Spanish, Arabic, English, German, Italian, Russian speaking agents, quite big scope of various markets.
In December 2015, another company was open, in Romania (annual book turnover less than 1mn USD, no more then 30 employees), but under the name of ROYAL PIP SECURITIES SRL (link, link, link), company number CUI 34459386 and later renamed to Central Financial Forecast Data Srl (in 2017, which approximately coincides with closure of Royal Pip brand, see links above). Here is one classics agent LinkedIn profile, showing his history with Royal Pip: link
However, troubles started with Royal Pip brand and its Romanian branch, in a form of a serious warning of Romanian financial regulator: warning
A digression and fast forward here - 2017 Novox got a fine from CySEC (175.000 eur, partially because of inadequate handling of BPOs for its brands) so Novox Capital distanced itself from Royal Pip and other brands they facilitated, claiming they had nothing to do with BPOs breaching rules across Europe and world (''it's not us, it was the IBs'' approach). Probably won't work for them.
Meanwhile, busy and thriving Belgrade-based boiler room was as queer as a clockwork orange, like the saying goes... ordinary and normal from the outside, not really from the inside. Why? So far, Royal Pip was the only one to expose, but no more than that. Which is not really a story and certainly not really an 'exposing' sort of thread! Really, besides whistleblower's info that there is more to this Smardis then just Royal Pip and that actually many other full-on scams were operated in the company premises, we had nothing more, except of Novox brand list with no clear link to specific BPO. No brand name to tie, investigate etc. Dead-end and boring thread end.
But then LinkedIn search happened ...
++++ continued in the next thread ++++
Royal Pip (www.royalpip.com , now closed and defunct) was a classic Forex broker, owned and operated by notorious, though regulated, Novox Capital of Cyprus (registrar link). FPA reviews (link) were...well, let's say not that bad, more-less. Skimming of the top a bit, a problem here and there, standard things-no big deal. Happens all the time in Retail Forex space. We wouldn't call it a scam explicitly, rather quite bad and unfair broker. Novox will be later on associated to numerous big-time scams, but that's another story, for another thread. Royal Pip way operated by CySEC (link) and FCA regulated Novox Capital (fca link), but call-center activities were outsourced, as they usually are. Time to present the boiler rooms commissioned to work on Royal Pip brand, at least three identified.
Presenting you now a company called SMARDIS LTD from Israel, company registrar: link (Hod HaSharon, Israel, company reg.no. 514897354), official website nowhere to be found (?). Owner/operator of the Israeli Smardis Ltd, as well as another 2 alike companies in the Netherlands (Smardis EU BV and Smardis Holding BV Amsterdam) is one Mr Oren Giditz, an Israeli citizen (link to all 3 Smardis entities link). The two NL entities are closed as of end 2019 and were founded around 2014, holding stake in one another, basically a Smardis Ltd Amsterdam-based outpost(s). It's not uncommon, really. Smardis is, per Mr Giditz own words, a BPO/call-center outsourcing company, serving many happy Forex/Crypto/CFD clients. Apparently, he says they are one of the best (here: link 1, link 2, link 3 etc). Ok, noted. So they are in the 'industry', therefore surely know all the international rules of the 'game'. We pause here to state our principle that not every Israel based broker/BPO is by default a shady one or a scam. No one should be labeled, until proven!
In April 2015, Smardis Ltd opened another company in the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, called SMARDIS SR D.O.O. Beograd, company details here: link
Authorized representative is Mr Oren Giditz, address is the same as some other city boiler rooms, looks like a favorite office space (Airport City business complex, built by Israeli investors decade ago, just to note here). The actual ownership of local Smardis Sr d.o.o goes to Smardis Ltd Israel, public registrar link extracts:
Btw, Smardis Ltd Israel was not a BPO business from the start. It seems, in 2011 (apparently the founding year) Smardis Israel/Mr Giditz had a different business, food industry with production of pecans additives (not that it matters for this thread, but here: link, link).
Smardis SR d.o.o. had numerous job advertisements for hiring agents by Smardis HR people (LinkedIn profile of job post email contact with @royalpip.com extension), that openly displayed Royal Pip brand as a Forex trade platform that agents would work on, so beyond any doubt, it is safe to state that Mr Gidit'z Smardis Ltd operated Royal Pip via Smardis SR d.o.o. And why wouldn't they, any way? It was a FCA/CySEC fully regulated brand! Job adds: link, link, link. Spanish, Arabic, English, German, Italian, Russian speaking agents, quite big scope of various markets.
In December 2015, another company was open, in Romania (annual book turnover less than 1mn USD, no more then 30 employees), but under the name of ROYAL PIP SECURITIES SRL (link, link, link), company number CUI 34459386 and later renamed to Central Financial Forecast Data Srl (in 2017, which approximately coincides with closure of Royal Pip brand, see links above). Here is one classics agent LinkedIn profile, showing his history with Royal Pip: link
However, troubles started with Royal Pip brand and its Romanian branch, in a form of a serious warning of Romanian financial regulator: warning
A digression and fast forward here - 2017 Novox got a fine from CySEC (175.000 eur, partially because of inadequate handling of BPOs for its brands) so Novox Capital distanced itself from Royal Pip and other brands they facilitated, claiming they had nothing to do with BPOs breaching rules across Europe and world (''it's not us, it was the IBs'' approach). Probably won't work for them.
Meanwhile, busy and thriving Belgrade-based boiler room was as queer as a clockwork orange, like the saying goes... ordinary and normal from the outside, not really from the inside. Why? So far, Royal Pip was the only one to expose, but no more than that. Which is not really a story and certainly not really an 'exposing' sort of thread! Really, besides whistleblower's info that there is more to this Smardis then just Royal Pip and that actually many other full-on scams were operated in the company premises, we had nothing more, except of Novox brand list with no clear link to specific BPO. No brand name to tie, investigate etc. Dead-end and boring thread end.
But then LinkedIn search happened ...
++++ continued in the next thread ++++
