Thread by @ianbeckett

@ArmitageJim @premnsikka 1/ The curious case of “disguise, I see thou art a wickedness” [Viola, Twelfth Night]. PART 2/2 <‘the #Emoney shot’>, following on from PART 1 - (). V-Wallet (Europe) Ltd was FCA authorised as an #Emoney op in 11/2018, …

2/ renamed to #Viola Money(Europe) Ltd “VMEL” six months later (05/2019) + purportedly acquired 10 months later (03/2020) by a ‘mysterious’ individual & a Scottish (rumoured to be ex Barclays Bank/Barclaycard/VISA cybersource) purported ‘right hand man’. Noteworthy was that …

3/ shortly before/after the @theFCA authorisation of VMEL, ‘Viola group’ (incl. VMEL) was seemingly ‘re-financed’ with the aid of the notorious now former FCA made men/women at #Alfandari (charges still show as outstanding on some Viola SPV’s).

4/ In PART 1 we pondered where the (one presumes many £m’s) money came from to setup & operate Viola India, ‘the FX ops’, ‘the funds’ etc. We also pondered the ops in VAM’s (Viola Asset Management GmbH etc) +/or Viola’s purported Hong Kong/Dubai/Singapore offices, …

5/ purported Dubai/Luxembourg ‘funds’ & purported ‘FX ops’. We cogitated the claims seemingly made (by ‘Viola FX Ltd USA’) of ‘ViolaFX Ltd’ being FCA authorised via Clear Treasury (UK Trading) Ltd () + using *Barclays Bank*.

6/ The #OneCoin crypto MLM Scam related USA trial + the resulting conviction on fraud + money laundering conspiracy charges of ex #BigLaw firm Locke Lord partner Mark Scott (), however, provided an interesting tidbit. A USA law enforcement …

7/ deposition in the Mark Scott case described a UK law enforcement ‘tip’ that ‘suspicious transactions’ were allegedly originating from (assuming a typo) a ‘Mercury FX’ account held in the name of ‘Viola Asset Management’ + terminating in the ops of the now also convicted …

8/ OneCoin scam money launderer Gilbert Armenta. Rather interestingly a ‘Mercury FX’ (Mercury Foreign Exchange Ltd) was also coincidentally an A.R. of Clear Treasury (UK Trading) Ltd. ‘Mercury FX’ & it’s South African honcho reportedly operate in South Africa/Hong Kong/UK - …

9/ ‘Mercury FX’ is now directly FCA authorised. The ‘sound of silence’ in UK regulation/enforcement re: the multi $b OneCoin scam/money laundering ops has been quite something to behold. However, we haven’t pondered who was plucking Viola’s strings + pushing its buttons …

10/ particularly in FCA authorised VMEL as it’s accounts reported only 2 employees in 2020 + nil in 2019. VAM’s compliance manager (+director of ViolaFX Ltd & the Luxembourg fund’s G.P.) was reportedly the ‘low profile’ Robert James MacDonald, allegedly from Grantham/Sleaford …

11/ (Lincolnshire border). Viola Group Ltd’s (incl. VMEL) head of compliance from 2016 (+ Director of VMEL from 2017 to date) was Mary-Ann Townsend, a seemingly strange choice from Brentford (London) with (LinkedIn bio) purportedly years as a ECM (electronic call monitoring) …

12/ officer in a care provider behind her, but then she was allegedly Christopher Hamilton’s sister!. One ponders if VMEL had a ‘head of payments’ + her background ?. Noteworthy was the service address of the PSC of Viola Group Ltd (Viola Money Ltd) - “c/o Locke Lord (UK) LLP”.

13/ When VMEL was purportedly acquired in 03/2020, its ‘HQ’ was purportedly moved 300km to (Barlborough) Derbyshire, 100km away from its purported new owner’s service address, coincidentally <70km from Grantham (a reported billet of VAM’s Robert James MacDonald) …

14/ but 240km away from a Brentford billet of its director/Head of Compliance - Mary-Ann Townsend. Rather fascinatingly, coincidentally in the unit next door (unit 7) to VMEL’s new ‘HQ’ (Unit 6A) once resided over several years a ‘nest’ of ‘payroll ops’ linked to notorious …

15/ Philippines HQ‘d #AndersonGroup & it’s point woman ‘Alona Varon’. We’ve met Alona Varon & Anderson Group before (exposed by @guardian/BBC) in notorious ‘payroll ops’ based in the very same ‘unit 7’ office. In PART 1 we also pondered the notorious Vienna linked …

16/ payment processors & debit card issuers #Wirecard/#Paysafe & their former execs ops. Paysafe was reportedly debit card issuer to both VMEL + it’s card services provider #VFXFinancial. Coincidentally former Paysafe execs were also directors of VMEL appointed reps. (A.R.s).

17/ VMEL allegedly used another of the FCA’s ‘regulatory cat-flaps’ (the ‘trade-name switcheroo’) - in 2021 ‘#Qorbis’ appeared on VMEL’s FCA register entry as a trade-name. The Qorbis op was allegedly UK SPV Qorbis Ltd (linked to a web of Qorbis on/offshore SPV’s), …

18/ purportedly a ‘white label’ open banking platform. Post VMEL’s purported 03/2020 acquisition, the FCA’s notorious A.R. (Appointed Representative regime) ‘regulatory catflap’ flood gates were opened. Briefly probing VMEL’s A.R.’s : 1. #Cashixir Ltd - a pseudo anonymous …

19/ online ‘digital voucher’ op, allegedly used by online gambling ops, in particular allegedly Turkey focused online gambling ops (non govt. online gambling is illegal). Cashixir moved to VMEL’s catflap from FCA auth Emoney op CFS-ZIPP Ltd’s (the subject of a future expose).

20/ It’s no surprise to find as Cashixir‘s former directors/sec. #CFSZIPP’s Messrs Hatton/Brown & Ms Bibbi-Walters (née Bibbi). CFS-ZIPP also featured ex Locke Lord partner/it’s former global head of cards & processing: Robert Courtneidge ().

21/ 2. Well Management Ltd (aka ‘Clear’/‘PayWithClear’) - purportedly a ‘high risk’ Payment Service Provider (#PSP), focussed on #CDB oil ops. Well Management’s honcho Daniel Rodwell seemingly now has ‘other fish to fry’, saddled up alongside Andrew Forsythe in the …

22/ Cypriot SPV (saWELL Holdings Ltd) + allegedly operating the #uQualify op, seemingly a one stop ‘open banking’ & ‘payment processing’ shop (payment processing, bank accounts, FX, Crypto etc) allegedly facilitating ‘high risk’ (online gambling, porn, CBD oil, etc) ops

23/ A one stop Cypriot SPV shop with both a recent FCA authorisation (via one of the FCA’s ‘regulatory hotels’) + purportedly linked to a Canadian recently FINTRAC authorised MSB (Money Services Business) - Bnk Services Ltd. 3. OMP Money Ltd - claimed by …

24/ #OMPMoney’s Dubai resident honcho Andreas Szakacs (also an #OmegaPro honcho) to be FX/crypto MLM op OmegaPro’s “bank” (). Regulators around the world have put out warnings on the OmegaPro MLM op.

25/ 4. #CurrencyClear Ltd - CEE central bank docs purportedly show that VMEL ‘operated though it’s agent’ #CurrencyClear. Currency Clear also used the FCA’s ‘tradename switcheroo’, operating #EuroClear allegedly in Canada/Germany/ROI with the UK ‘piggy in the middle’.

26/ CurrencyClear more recently used the ‘tradename switcheroo’ to kickstart #evostro, purportedly a blockchained up ‘white label’ open banking platform op. CurrencyClear’s directors were ex. #Paysafe execs. More specifically …

27/ Vincent Power was reportedly global head of banking + treasury at notorious facilitator of the #PornMen/#GamblingMen’s ops: payment processor #Skrill (reverse takeover in 2015 by OptimalPayments aka Paysafe). Gerard Tilton Neu was former Group VP of tax at OptimalPayments …

28/ aka Paysafe + also a director of another of VMEL’s A.R.’s - ‘#SnowyPay’. 5. Snowy Pay Ltd - Snowy Pay allegedly specialised in the provision of ‘white label e-bank accounts’ (eg it’s been alleged offshore client a/c’s for Bank of Asia BVI) & ‘high risk’ transaction …

29/ acquiring. Snowy Pay was formerly an A.R. of #PayrNet aka #Railsbank (which purchased #Wirecard’s whiffy UK based debit card issuing business), most recently written up as allegedly caught up in the #MuchBetter ‘shadow banking’ op (fintelegram.com/muchbetter-the…).

30/ Directors of Snowy Pay include ex Paysafe exec Gerard Tilton Neu. Until a few weeks ago the alleged CEO & minority shareholder of Snowy Pay Ltd was Belize resident Odway Flowers. Coincidentally there was a Belize resident Odway Flowers that was a honcho of the …

31/ notorious Belize #ChoiceBank (notorious particularly for facilitating the ops of the #PornMen) + allegedly head of its even more notorious debit card ops (that powered payments in the PornMens affiliate networks) which issued #Payoneer/#Paxum debit cards. When …

32/ MasterCard eventually pulled the plug on Choice Bank’s debit card ops, Choice Bank imploded (currently on its 4th liquidator). Before Belize, Odway Flowers was allegedly a fixture in the TCI (Turks & Caicos Islands) banking ‘scene’ (TCI is also a notorious facilitator …

33/ of the #PornMen/#GamblingMen’s ops - ). Exposes on Choice Bank/Payoneer - (nbcnews.com/business/consu… AND timesofisrael.com/behind-bennett… AND en.globes.co.il/en/article-pay… AND breakingbelizenews.com/2020/09/22/cho…). Gerard Neu/Odway Flowers’ wingwoman & major shareholder …

34/ (until a few weeks ago) was German come sometime Turkish resident Julia Rittershausen, one half of the Rittershausens. Snowy Pay was entwined with another UK company, owned by the Rittershausens: SP FintechBanking Solutions Ltd. Markus ‘Mark’ Rittershausen is also an …

35/ officer/shareholder of SP FintechBanking Solutions LTD + allegedly previously ran through Companies House a purported Tbilisi (**Georgia**) card transaction acquiring op (with a purported Ukrainian op) allegedly using 3 UK shell companies. Of the only 4 domain names …

36/ reportedly hosted on a specific German IP address, 3 domain names coincidentally corresponded to the 3 UK shell company names, the 4th coincidentally corresponded to a £248k VMEL creditor name (Cash To Card TCI).

37/ 6. Capital Management Group Ltd (aka ‘EurobankPartner’) “CapitalMGL” - allegedly a UK SPV, which used the infamous Companies House ‘retrospective identity switcheroo’ we’ve seen before, which in effect superficially obfuscated it’s original director’s name.

38/ The Swiss regulator has warned against EurobankPartner (CapitalMGL) which rather fascinatingly contains on its FCA register entry as contact details - ‘ebankplatform..com’, a shadowy Israeli op (allegedly Transfer Fintech Ltd - Israel cpy no 516282217) who boast of …

39/ being ‘the largest digital bank’ & that their white label e-banking platform is ‘untraceable’. However, the plot thickens as on CapitalMGL’s (EuroBankPartner) website a FCA authorised (Emoney op) UK ‘shell’ SPV: ‘Smart Fintech Ltd’ purports to use CapitalMGL as an EMI agent.

40/ In the last few weeks Smart Fintech Ltd filed dormant company accounts + in the last few days a new Slovenian director ‘Natalija Krizmanic’ was appointed (CapitalMGL’s disappearing director ‘Tina Bukovnik’ was also Slovenian). Rather fascinatingly both a …

41/ Natalija Krizmanic & an Antonija ‘Tina’ Bukovnik are officers of a Slovenian SPV ‘CallKey Systems, informacijske storitve in nastanitve doo’ (No. 8566615000). Coincidentally, a Cypriot SPV ‘CallKey Systems Ltd’ is the payment processing subsidiary of online gambling op …

42/ ‘#CasinoEmpireGaming’ whose payment processing, back office & call centre ops allegedly operate out of CEE. Coincidentally, a CallKey Systems Ltd appears in VMEL’s creditors list as well as coincidentally a Capital Management Group Ltd & a Smart Fintech Ltd.

43/ The Casino Empire gaming support contact phone number ([phone]) is coincidentally allegedly one formerly used by the infamous #BinaryOptions op: #BancDeBinary (timesofisrael.com/topic/banc-de-…). There is, however, coincidentally another ‘Capital Management Group Ltd’ lurking …

44/ in Companies House, this one a notorious Anguilla registered SPV (No. 2167648), director/member to a ‘nest’ of > 70 UK Ltd/LP/SLPs (which link in to a spider web of on/offshore SPV’s), their Londonski home invariably World Trade Centre Ltd “WTC” (or formation factories).

45/ WTC was/is home to USA National/Danish resident Thomas Sims, the infamous Seychelles (come Londonski) resident Jennifer Rene + Arunas Masenas. The Danish press have dubbed Arunas Masenas ‘the strawman’, director to hundreds of SPV’s allegedly entwined in a …

46/ €4bn Danske Bank’s Estonian laundromat scandal (). Three months ago, Arunas Masenas’ Russian come Danish alleged associate was extradited from Londonski back to Denmark + held in custody. 7. #Livil Ltd - aka Hong Kong purported crypto wallet, …

47/ open banking + money transfer op #PayBank (l.cash), fronted by it’s baby faced purported honcho ‘Cameron Park’. 8. GlobalBlock Ltd - An on/offline crypto trading op formerly owned by UK/offshore (Bermuda) FCA auth. trading & wealth management op …

48/ ‘Peregrine & Black’. ‘Acquired’ in 07/2021 by TSX listed ‘Helix Applications Inc.’ A few weeks ago the FCA notified GlobalBlock it was minded to refuse it crypto-asset registration, citing ‘concerns’ (following a review of transactions last year) GlobalBlock Ltd …

49/ wouldn’t be able to comply with money laundering rules. So to the VMEL administrator’s (rather fascinatingly it’s *Glasgow* office) first report + a superficial *hypothetical* probe of the top ~15 on VMEL’s creditors list. In PART 1 we pondered ‘Glasgow’, so …

50/ unsurprisingly no.10 (£856k) coincidentally shared its name with a Glasgow purported ‘IT support’ op (CCA Services U. K Ltd Ltd). This coincidentally shared the same service address (48 West George St, Glasgow) as Wash HQ Ltd, a car wash sister company (common directors) …

51/ of a JD Wholesale Ltd, which coincidentally shared the same name as no.17 (£519k). Glasgow ‘payroll op’ People Services Solution Ltd (in Scottish courts a few weeks ago), linked to a web of recently setup ‘payroll ops’ + coincidentally shared the same name as no.16 (£521k).

52/ People Services Solution Ltd allegedly had a common director with a LKH Trading Ltd which coincidentally shared the same name as no.12 (£796k). We’ve pondered already in a probe of VMEL’s A.R.’s : at no.6 (£1.2m) - Snowy Pay Ltd. At no.25 (£248k) - Cash to Card TCI Ltd.

53/ At no.13 (£715k) - Capital Management Group Ltd. At no.21 (£299k) - Smart Fintech Ltd. At no.8 (£1.0m) - Callkey Systems Ltd , which coincidentally shared the same name as the alleged payment processing subsidiary of the ‘Casino Empire Gaming’ online gambling op.

54/ At no.15 (£582k) - Cashixir Ltd. At no.78 (£8k) - Omega Pro Services Ltd. Of the remainder : At no.14 (£709k) - Vega Capital London Ltd which coincidentally shared the same name as a company used by Messrs Spires, Gaunt etc aka ‘the TOWIE oil traders that made £478m …

55/ in a day’ (dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9…). At no.19 (£435k) - #PXP Financial Ltd, well there’s a surprise .. not (). At no.7 (£1.2m) - #Easyex OU, seemingly yet another Eesti Firma hatched Estonian crypto exchange op (fintelegram.com/estonian-compl…).

56/ Easyex OU has also been reported allegedly used as a payment method in online gambling ops (eg Mr Bet, Crypto Pay N Play, Lucky Wins Casino). At no.3 (£2.8m) - #Wallter UAB, Lithuanian Emoney op, fined in 2020 for holding client funds improperly in other Emoney ops & …

57/ knowingly providing incorrect info. to the central bank. Wallter UAB also reportedly allegedly provided the payment account for the reportedly notorious Estonian (Israeli) crypto exchange op #Pradexx (vixio.com/insight/paymen…). Wallter UAB’s honcho, Isaac Armoni, …

58/ an Israeli lawyer, was formerly head of legal/compliance for FCA auth emoney op #MoneyNetInt Ltd. ‘MoneyNetInt’ was reported allegedly caught up in notorious Israeli broker scam ops eg the infamous #WolfOfSophia scams (fintelegram.com/exposed-fca-re… AND …

59/ AND fintelegram.com/research-updat…). MoneyNetInt Ltd also reportedly earned recently a nomination for the ‘Oscar’ of the UK Banking Industry (blog.moneynetint.com/british-bankin…). At no.2 (£2.9m) - Pelayoil Espana SL + at no.5 (£1.2m) - Private Major SA. Both allegedly Spanish SPV’s & …

60/ both purportedly oil companies, but both of their alleged websites strangely appear very similar vanilla ‘shell’ electronic goods store sites. Both of their domain dns records appear to have been hosted by the same ‘esoteric’ Pakistani web hoster (74hoster..com).

61/ Both domains appear registered at the exact same date/time on 3/Nov/2021, coincidentally mere hours after the FCA finally issued its pitiful ‘1st supervision notice’ BUT astonishingly still allowed VMEL to carry out unsupervised ‘individual transactions’ of <£5k.

62/ Both domains superficially appear to have ‘red flags’ for ‘transaction laundries’. At no.1 (£5.5m) - ‘204 private individuals’ (ave = £27k/head) - seemingly the fallout of more ‘white label’ open banking platforms entwined with VMEL than you can shake a stick at.

63/ Last July the Mail wrote of a £25k UK victim of a clone bond scam allegedly utilising VMEL aka ‘Viola Money’ (thisismoney.co.uk/money/experts/…) and the Times wrote in 2020 of the desperately sad story of another UK victim (on his deathbed) in a different £130k clone bond scam …

64/ allegedly utilising *Barclays Bank* accounts in the name of ‘Viola Money’ & ‘PayRent’. Whilst @theFCA has slept at the wheel, AIS (Account Information Services) & PIS (Payment Initiation Services) have been repurposed by the FCA’s made men/women (+ webs of scheisters) to …

65/ be their new ‘open banking’ weapons of mass defrauding. The UK has taken its place as the open banking epicentre of #fraud & #MoneyLaundering as 10s of millions of PISP (Payment Initiation Service Provider) transactions are currently made every month in the ‘wild west’ of …

66/ #Emoney ops/banks in the UK financial system (). But it’s not all bad .. for the ‘Viola crew’ that is - Viola India’s former CTO is reportedly now in a spiffy hi-falutin’ role in Londonski .. unsurprisingly at *Barclays Bank*, as ‘Platform Director’.

67/67 One still ponders who was ‘on the beaches’ & ‘in the shadows’, plucking Viola’s strings - unsurprisingly, the ‘6 figure apparatchiki’ at @theFCA (as always) didn’t hear a thing, didn’t see a thing + didn’t do much of anything at all.

For those that want to view the above all on ‘one page’ or save as a pdf, here is a thread reader link - threadreaderapp.com/thread/1506605…