Ugne Buraciene Following Yukom’s Footsteps? (2024)
It resembles the height of binary options trading. Large binary options firms, such as the Israeli Yukom, had a reputation for rewarding their staff members with brand-new automobiles, ideally BMWs. Lee Elbaz, the CEO of Yukom, received a 28-year prison sentence in the United States for investment fraud. Group CEO Ugne Buraciene declared during Payabl’s X-Mas celebration that every employee based in Cyprus will receive a brand-new BMW from the company. Dietmar Knoechelmann and Ruediger Trautmann, two former senior executives of Wirecard, founded the business.
One of the businesses in Wirecard’s shadow organisation was the old PowerCash21. Dietmar Knoechelmann, the former CEO of Wirecard Payment Solutions, and Ruediger Trautmann, the former CFO of Wirecard, launched it more than 10 years ago in Germany and Cyprus. The business appears to have an abundance of cash on hand. Payabl is the name of the payment institution that has been under Central Bank of Cyprus regulation since 2021. The payment processor, like Wirecard, focuses on the high-risk internet trading, gambling, and porn industries.
About Yukom Communications Scam:
The former CEO of Israel-based Yukom Communications, a reputed sales and marketing firm, was sentenced to 22 years in jail today for organizing a plan to swindle investors who had acquired more than $100 million in financial instruments known as “binary options.”
Lee Elbaz, 38, an Israeli citizen, was sentenced by United States District Judge Theodore D. Chuang of the District of Maryland. After a three-week jury trial, Elbaz was convicted on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud on August 7, 2019.
“This defendant targeted and defrauded thousands of victims, stealing money from retirees, veterans, and others, many of whom lost all of their savings,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Today’s sentence demonstrates that criminals who defraud U.S. investors will face serious consequences, no matter where in the world they commit their crimes.”
“Financial fraudsters like Elbaz and her co-conspirators are only concerned in one thing: stealing money from naïve investors for personal gain. The FBI is committed to detecting and investigating fraud, regardless of where the criminals are or how long it takes,” said Assistant Director in Charge Timothy R. Slater of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. “I’d like to thank our partners in this investigation, specifically the Israeli Police, and to encourage anyone who may have information about binary options fraud to come forward and report it to the FBI.”
According to the evidence produced at trial, Elbaz and her co-conspirators fraudulently offered and advertised binary options to investors in the United States and across the world via two websites: BinaryBook and BigOption. The evidence showed that in her role as CEO of Yukom, Elbaz, along with her co-conspirators and subordinates, misled investors using BinaryBook and BigOption by falsely claiming to represent the interests of investors when, in fact, the owners of BinaryBook and BigOption profited when investors lost money; by misrepresenting the suitability of and expected return on investments through BinaryBook and BigOption; and by providing investors with false names and qualifications.
According to the evidence, representatives of BinaryBook and BigOption, operating under Elbaz’s supervision, misrepresented the conditions of so-called “bonuses,” “risk free trades,” and “insured trades,” and falsely leveraged these alleged benefits in a manner that damaged investors.
Five co-conspirators who worked for Elbaz, including Liora Welles, Shira Uzan, Yair Hadar, Austin Smith, and Lissa Mel, have pled guilty to conspiracy to conduct wire fraud and received sentences. Welles, Uzan, Hadar, and Smith all worked together against Elbaz and testified at her trial in July 2019. In addition, an indictment accusing another 15 of Elbaz’s accused co-conspirators was unsealed in November 2019.
The FBI’s Washington Field Office investigated this case. The case is being prosecuted by Principal Assistant Chief Henry Van Dyck, Assistant Chiefs L. Rush Atkinson, and Caitlin R. Cottingham from the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section. Assistant Chief Tracee Plowell and Trial Attorney Ankush Khardori of the Fraud Section had previously prosecuted the case. The Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs and the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission also assisted in this investigation.
