French Regulators Blacklist 14 Illegal FX Trading Platforms

The financial market regulators in France, Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) and the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) have blacklisted 14 forex trading platforms that are operating in the country illegally.

French regulators blacklist 14 Illegal FX trading platforms

The two financial market regulators announced that they would be adding 14 new sites to their blacklist list. The regulators said that the illegal platforms that were blacklisted include action-sure.com, algo-robot.co, eu.vtmarkets.com, fxwinning.pr, and fxwinning.net.

The other trading platforms that have been added to this list include mainet.business, mainetfrance.com, morganfinance.trade, rxkcapital.com, weareturbo.io, xmarket-finance.com, xmonetatrading.com, autofxbroker.com, and polarbtc.com.

Since the beginning of the year, AMF and ACPR have detected and added 22 illegal forex trading platforms to the list of sites that have been blacklisted. However, there is no new website providing unauthorized cryptocurrency trading derivatives in France has been detected and added to this blacklist since the start of the year.

French regulators are not just cracking down on illegal FX trading activities. They are also cracking down on automated FX trading. The latest addition of 14 sites to the number of blacklisted platforms comes amid recent warnings by the AMF against automated forex trading platforms.

In June 2023, the AMF issued an alert against Immediate Connect. Immediate Connect is an investment scheme that lied to investors and made them register with unauthorized platforms offering automated trading services related to forex and cryptocurrency derivatives by promising them high returns.

Earlier this year, the AMF sent out another warning that alerted investors against some services. The regulator warned against patronizing the services of unregulated companies that were selling subscriptions to automated forex trading robots.

The AMF issued the alert after obtaining multiple reports from institutions and investors, including those operating in French overseas territories. The regulator warned about these firms providing fraudulent trading robot software in the forex industry.

Regulators across Europe are taking actions against illegal platforms

French regulators are not the only ones cracking down on illegal trading activities. Besides France, other market regulators across Europe are also taking measures to address the rapid increase in fraudulent forex trading and investment schemes. On Friday, the UK Financial Conduct Authority blacklisted the clone sites of Interactive Brokers and Polar Capital LLP.

The financial market watchdog in New Zealand has also criticized a stop order by Validus and all the associated companies. The regulator said that Validus, which allegedly invests across the crypto, forex, and stock, was tricking investors into participating in the company by offering them a 350% return on investment after more than 60 weeks.

In the US, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued a Florida resident, Sanjay Singh, for allegedly closing a $112 million raise through an FX Ponzi scheme that promised investors returns of 325%. A US court also ordered commodity pool operator Kay Yang and her companies to pay more than $24 million for running a retail forex fraud.