The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on Tuesday that it has filed charges on two individuals based in Israel with allegedly defrauding US investors out of millions of dollars through binary options. According to the press release, Jonathan ‘Yoni’ Maymon and Ronn BenHarav are accused by the SEC of defrauding investors, including retirees and other retail investors, through fraudulent and online offers, which included sales of high-risk securities in the form of binary options offerings.

The complaint, filed in a federal court in the Nevada state, noted that the defendants set up a company based in Israel named ‘JMRB Media, Ltd.’, which allegedly operates boiler rooms, where in reality salespersons used bogus tactics and manoeuvres to offer and sell binary options under the brand names ‘Porter Finance’ and ‘Dalton Finance’. Also, the financial watchdog claims that JMRB employees did not disclose their real names and location, plus their financial expertise, to customers.

Using Fake Binary Options Promotion to Trick People

“The SEC’s complaint further alleges that defendants devised a ‘win button’ that, when activated, helped to produce winning trades for investors. Salespersons allegedly used this device to create a track record of recommending or placing successful trades for an investor, which was then used to solicit additional investor deposits. The complaint alleges that most investors who made deposits and traded binary options through the brokers lost money, and some individuals lost hundreds of thousands of dollars,” the US SEC stated in the announcement.

That said, both Maymon and BenHarav were charged with “direct and indirect violations of the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, the registrations provisions of Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act, and the broker-dealer registration provisions of Section 15(a) of the Exchange Act.”

On June 22, Finance Magnates reported that the US SEC settled charges against Loci Inc. and its CEO, John Wise, for allegedly making false and misleading statements connected to fraud and an unregistered securities offering.