The Italian securities market regulator, locally known as the Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB), announced on Friday that it ordered the black-out of seven websites, who were illegally offering financial services in the country.

The seven blacklisted websites are:

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• DirectaFx Limited (www.directafx.com);
• Gntfin LTD (www.gnt-fin.com);
• Maxi Services Ltd (www.maximarkets.org);
• Platiniumfund Ltd (www.platinium-fund.com);
• Digital Exchange Limited and Securex Plus Solutions EOOD (www.dgxltd.io);
• ProConsultingInvest (www.proconsultinginvest.co);
• Tfx25 (www.tfx25.co.uk).

All of these websites are offering trading services with multiple assets including forex, equities, and commodities.

With this recent addition, the CONSOB is restricting access to 268 platforms in total, all for offering suspicious financial products or services in Italy. Earlier this month, the regulator flagged five more websites and imposed similar restrictions.

The securities regulator was authorised the power to black-out websites in July 2019 under the so-called “Growth Decree” law that extended its crack-down on unregistered organisations.

“The activities for the blackout of the said websites by the Internet connectivity providers operating on the Italian territory are in progress,” the regulatory notice detailed continuing with, “For technical reasons, it can take a few days for making them effective.”

Increasing scams alerted the regulators

Meanwhile, there is also an increase in financial scams all around the world, especially because of the fears and opportunities instigated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CONSOB is among the most vigilant regulators in Europe when it comes to flagging leveraged offshore brokers. The watchdog also put a blanket ban on 24Option and Hoch Capital Ltd, before they were flagged by the FCA and CySEC. Both these brokers renounced their CIF authorization licenses earlier this month, Finance Magnates reported.