Anything im saying. I even though you just responded to me in perfect english. Did you know that this was a scam . No. And we travel to the former soviet states where it all began. Hi, simona. I know who this guy is. Lets just call him mr red. It took us over a year to peel back the layers of Shell Companies hidden offshore to identify for the first time the big fish we believe are getting rich on misery. Losing 30,000 to a bunch of scammers. I was absolutely devastated by it. Hello . Hi. This isjen. Whos this . Hi. My name is simona, and im an investigative reporter, and i think im about to be scammed. 80 of my clients here started this thing. They dont have any experience. Im pretending to be a schoolteacher called jen, and ive signed up to a number of Trading Platforms to see how this scam works. Sounds fantastic. Software like this normally costs a fortune, but can i trust her . Where are you calling from . But you have such an interesting accent. Where are you from originally . 0k. I know all about call centre scams. Ive been investigating them for years now. Now im posing as a teacher who wants to make some extra income to help pay the bills. Im pretending to be canadian as the scammers dont call americans like me. Because here in washington, dc, a team of prosecutors successfully brought down one such scam, sending the woman running it to prison for 22 years. How big was the problem at the time when you started investigating . Why did you even take it on . Just in the handful of organisations that we were focusing on initially, there were Tens Of Thousands of victims across the world. I mean, there was one victim who had reported losing 400,000. A lot of these people were likejust like, you know, any of the rest of us. Theyre no smarter, no dumber, professionals. Quite a few people who worked for the government and had long careers in the government who ended up being defrauded by scams like this. Three years ago, i was part of an International Investigation with the swedish newspaper dagens nyheter. For the first time, we revealed the existence of a criminal group called milton. Now i want to expose the senior men really behind it. Back then, we discovered miltons front line were scam call centres, where hundreds of young people in Eastern Europe are recruited with promises of big money and a little luxury. For each new victim, they receive a bonus and a hefty percentage of the money they persuade them to invest. Then the investigation had an Undercover Mole employed in a Milton Call Centre in kyiv, ukraine. When the investigation came out, he went into witness protection. We tracked him down to see if he could help us go further and identify the masterminds behind the scams. We have to protect alexs identity. Weve changed his name and voice. Hes paid a heavy price for going up against the criminals in the militant group and now has to live in a secret location away from friends and family. Despite the risks, hes determined the criminals see justice. I hope that, with his inside knowledge, well be able to piece together the clues to reveal how the criminals work. During those months when you were undercover, were you ever scared . Yes, i was terrified of getting caught. It was very stressful psychologically. I decided to stay there just to discover for public about this crime and to help police get evidence. So even though there was a huge expose involving dozens of newspapers around the world, militant group is still operating . Yes, they still operating. And they started to make big money. As a student in russia, alex was trained in cryptography. Hes now using those skills to follow the money. In your estimation, how much money has the militant group made since it started . About one billion. About 1 billion . Since 2017. Youre saying 100 of people lost money, meaning they lost at least some of their money . Yes. Not a single cent went into a real trade. What happened to the money once people deposited it in their account . Victims think that they have a real account with the company, but there is not really any trading. Just a simulation. Fraud is larger than its ever been. Last year, victims reported losing £4 billion in the united kingdom. Most people never come forward. 0h, here we go. Hi. This isjen. Oh, im so glad were finally speaking. With alexs help, im now talking to the milton scammers. Patrick works for one of their brands, coin nivo. Thank you. I want to see what sort of promises they make to persuade me to invest. How much money do you think i can make in a month doing this . These kind of returns are impossible to promise. To show how the scam works, i deposit 500 in bitcoin and agree on another time to talk to patrick. The milton group has thousands of victims. Many lose much more than the bbc is allowing me to put in. Im just going to transfer the money to you. 0k, one second. Im on my way to meet londoner barry burnett, who started making £10 trades after signing up with a prominent milton brand. When he saw how well his portfolio appeared to be doing, he invested more. He told us he let his Trading Adviser Take Control of his computer and trade for him. This should never happen. Then he started losing money and this is when the milton fraudsters asked him to invest even more. Put some more money in. Yeah, and double up. If you put £25,000 in, then you can wipe out your losses and make a profit. And i said, no, im not doing that. Absolutely not. I just want to just bring my losses down to a manageable amount and i want to get out. And i must have got at least half a dozen calls from half a dozen individuals in the space of about two hours. My phone just kept on blowing up, begging me basically to put some more money in. Barry says he lost over £10,000. His experience fits a pattern. What if i told you that weve spoken to insiders at the company and they told us it was all a scam . I am horrified. Im numb. I cant believe this because i was never really going to get that back. So i could almost think that the moment i put that ten grand in their account, that was it. It wasjust gone. You know, its disgusting on every level, you know, itjust makes me sick to think about it. I could just imagine the misery theyve inflicted on other peoples lives. So how do these Companies Pull it off . How do they get so many people to trust them . The brand barry used became established through a high profile Sponsorship Deal with one of europes biggest football clubs, sevilla fc. Its match day. Two of spains biggest clubs are playing their local derby. Over two years, the milton group spent an estimated seven euros million with sevilla fc to promote their brands, including glossy promo videos like this. Sevilla even used some of their biggest players to unwittingly sell miltons brands. I didnt know much about trading, but it taught me everything i needed to know. Forex and football are both unpredictable industries, but these guys have all the necessary material to help out new traders like myself. So thank you. Their Sponsorship Deal finished soon after the Uks Financial Conduct Authority banned it, but not before they had ripped off 17,000 investors in spain alone. Lots of the clubs fans know people who have lost money on these scams. Hey, mark. Im good. Im in seville. On a side street, i went to talk to someone who also investigates these scams. Mark solomons works for an australian Investigations Firm that tries to get money back for victims. The thing with milton group is that they tend to sort of, theyll hit people up for a certain amount and then they move on and they kind of like to work in bulk. I mean the logo, its hard to imagine that most of the fans havent been exposed to it. It must be because its giving them access to a particular demographic thats maybe prone to gambling. The Brand Awareness that these deals generate is essential in making these scams appear reputable. We found that 40 of the english premiership signed Sponsorship Deals with suspected scam brands outside the milton group. This includes chelsea, everton, fulham, leeds, liverpool, manchester city, southampton and tottenham. They were all either investigated by regulators, fined by regulators, investigated by police or banned by the financial conduct authority, including fxvc, who sponsored leeds united until 2021, when they were banned by the financial conduct authority. While leeds made promos like this, fxvc scammed hundreds of thousands of pounds while using its sponsorship to look legitimate. The idea that weve been manipulated by a company like that would really make me sick to my stomach. Quite upset because it was quite heavily advertised as well. You can do it off the website as well. So not very happy. Yeah. After seeing that Fx Vc Sponsored leeds united, phil and joyce invested £1,000 with them. The call centre soon got to work. His words to me were, i will take care of you as though you were my own mother. One of the main things he was saying, phil, you do realise youre going to be a millionaire. Despite the extraordinary promises, the couple say they believed fxvc was a reputable Trading Platform. Why would they allow that sort of company to support leeds united, a Premiership Football Club . Why . Itjust doesnt make sense to me. So i took it at face value that they were a good, reputable company. Phil invested more, betting £100,000 that the price of bitcoin would go up and his account showed an £85,000 profit in a weekend. So they put in more and more. He said all along that you can have your money theres no problem, have your money out whenever you want. But when they started losing money, their Account Manager told them their balance had fallen below a threshold. So to get their remaining money out, they would have to put more in. So they did and then lost it all. We had lost £341,000 within seven days. They dont care who they hurt, they dont care who they take money off. They dont care. I knew he was really deeply distraught over it and i knew he would be humiliated and ashamed. He literally hung on to me that day, just apologising and saying, im s o r w , im s o r w i was stupid. Leeds united have got a duty of care to make sure the people that they are associated with are legitimate companies and not doing these sort of scams. Leeds united told us. The Premier League clubs that responded said deals were ended early, were not renewed, or that allegations against the potential Scam Companies only came after the Sponsorship Deals had ended. And seville fc told us that once the contract ended there was no more contact with the company. While these shiny videos may be history, no one to date from the companies has been prosecuted for these scams. One of the reasons is that criminal investigations are highly complex, expensive, and the scammers seem to always be one step ahead. In britain, none of the victims weve spoken to have had their cases pursued by the police. 0liver was a reporter in the former soviet union but now writes about Money Laundering and the Offshore World. Am i surprised to hear that the British Police have done nothing about these reports . No, that is wearily familiar. If youre famous, theyll take an interest. But if itsjust, you know, mr and mrs smith have lost their retirement savings, 40 grand, 50 grand, 60 grand, send in a report and nothing will happen. 0liver believes that the scammers hide behind a complex series of Offshore Companies to protect their true identity. If you are coming at it as an investigative journalist or more likely as a Law Enforcement agent, you have to go to every one of those jurisdictions, write them a letter, a formal process, and then receive information about the ownership of that company. That may take you six months. It may take you a year. It may not be possible at all. So the point of the complexity is to make things incomprehensible and essentially to try and force other people just to give up. Im not about to give up, but i do need some help. In a sleepy town in germany, ive heard the fight back against milton is under way. Its an unlikely hub for the High Tech Fight against the scammers. The Cyber Crime Unit here, in contrast to the uk, is making arrests across europe and beyond. Nice to meet you. Welcome. Using digital techniques, the team can follow the crime through the dark portals of the deepest parts of the internet and chase down those perpetrating it. Its directed by public prosecutors, methodically gathering evidence and forensically tracing the huge sums of money it generates. They are operating like professional legal companies. And thats what we say, this is organised crime. And how much money are some of these larger organised crime groups bringing in . Probably hundreds of millions per year. Investigating financial scams like these means following the money. So, lets say we have one victim of whatever platform and we know he transferred his money to this bank account of whatever company here in germany, and then we have all the transactions of the company, of the bank account, and we see there are so many other victims from germany and austria and Great Britain and france who all send their money on this bank account. But those cases are still unreported. And our biggest problem is that we only see the reported cases. Their investigation is making headway. Last year, they seized these assets from another criminal group who also operated investment scams. But the methodical gathering of evidence takes years. In the very beginning, we werent sure at all whether we will identify any suspects and that there will be any arrest ever. But after three years, we see there are dozens of arrests and we were able to identify really Huge Networks of scammers. I wanted to know if the prosecutors were aware of who was behind the milton group. So i had to ask. Who are the big bosses of the milton group . No comment. Good evening. Hi. Yes, you are. Youre speaking with jen. Ive been passed up the chain to a retention manager. Its the same job that alex had while working in the call centre in ukraine. Then, he sold a few different brands, but he has since discovered many more that follow the same pattern. He unearthed scores of different brands, but they all had identical sign up pages, exactly the same wording in their terms and conditions, and exactly the same login pages. Alex has then discovered that they all share the same unique code in their design, and the same online deposit page where clients can choose to invest with dollars, pounds or cryptocurrencies. They has the same sign in page and the same code and the same script and the same structure as all these other websites. So youre100 sure its a milton Group Website . Yes, im100 sure. Ok, lets look at how many brands are there total . 152. Wow. Its a huge brand network, but are there any other connections . We decided to follow the money. Like me, a lot of people now hand over bitcoin, and bitcoin is on a public ledger, which means you can follow where it goes, so it should be simple, but its not. Because there are thousands and thousands of Crypto Wallets that channel the money. Coinevo. Victims have been doing this for years, putting money into other brands, including the brand that scammed barry. The money that moves through a complex system of wallets but ultimately ends up in just a few dozen, we suspect, owned by the people behind the scam. We dont know for sure who owns these wallets, but mapping this network is useful because it shows these brands are linked. We saw my coin money joining a money route here before continuing through to the rest of the network. Like, doing so well. So this is a trade that i opened and im not, like, doing so well. Im kind of like in the red. Ive been trying to Contact Coin Evo but have heard nothing back. Perhaps they know who i really am or only interested in people whove invested more. Antoine still doesnt get back to me, so i decide to cut my losses and withdraw my money. Then i get this email. Hi, jenny. Despite chasing, i never got back the money that was still in the account. So how can we find out whos behind these crimes . When alex, the Undercover Mole, worked for milton, he recorded their 2020 new Years Eve Party with a secret camera in his watch. Are there clues here about who the milton Group Masterminds are . The audio reveals a man called david, who was crowned the father of milton. When i worked on the first investigation, we identified this david as Georgian National david taufua. To simplify the complex connections in this network. Were going to give him a nickname, mr 0range. These are photos from his now deleted Instagram Feed showing him at the party with other senior figures of the milton group and him posing with guns. So where does mr 0range fit into the wider Milton Organisation . Two years after the party, he has an office in a new call centre in kyiv selling milton brands. Ukraine is clearly important for their whole operation, but they like everyone else, were about to get a shock. Ukraine was invaded, and alex, keeping an eye on scammers from his hiding place, was seeing evidence online that Call Centre Staff were fleeing the war. 0ne place hes seenjob adverts is in the former soviet republic of georgia. Ive come to the Capital Tbilisi to meet local ive come to the Capital Tbilisi to meet a local investigative reporter. So, weve come to georgia because we think that this has become one of the hubs of the companies behind the call centres. Are you sure . We have an insider who thinks that theyre getting people in ukraine to relocate to georgia. A few months ago, there was a big scandal related to the call centres and the Prosecutors Office shut down several offices. But since then, we know that the area is clean and the call centres moved away from the country. There was an investigative story. You can see that. I know who that is. This one . Yes, i know who this guy is. Ive investigated him before. He was charged in israel with tax evasion, but never showed up for his trial. I think that we need to investigate for ourselves. Our own Research Shows that this man, lets call him mr red registered an early milton brand, so this suggests that hes been involved for a long time. Im curious, but it doesnt take me long to come back with more. Im curious, but it doesnt take nino long to come back with more. Shes found evidence of a call centre and its active. Its called img capital. Img capital, the Company Founded by some four years ago. I found his eye scan and his Email Address in the business registry. And i have a contract of Rental Agreement, which is signed, and he signed a Rental Agreement in 2019. We identified the his profile on facebook. Then we found out the people on the photos. So we found out a person who worked at a call centre and we persuaded her to talk to you. We met the young woman whod worked at mg capital in central tbilisi. She doesnt want to talk on camera, so were not showing her face and have changed her voice. Ivana was told to choose a fake english sounding name and never reveal that she was calling from georgia. She was selling a milton brand. But who isjospeph megaladze, ouergreen . Can his other Business Links tell us anything about this network . We already know that he founded and used to own mg capital, which seems to have sold milton brands. But mr green also founded this company. Its directors have included two men who seem connected to the network. This guy, mr blue, owned a company which has provided tech to the milton group brands, a company that he sold to mr 0range, the gun loving david, and together with mr pink, mr. Blue is senior, as well as other crucial milton Tech Companies. And finally, some of these Key Companies operated from the same building that housed mr 0range� s new office in kyiv. This is all looking very cosy. The Offshore World is opaque, with some people spending a fortune deliberately muddying the waters of their operations. But they cant be sure that the past will stay buried forever. As the world wakes up to have the revelations and the Panama Papers, well ask why. Back in 2016, millions of documents that were meant to be confidential were leaked. They revealed the true owners and Inner Workings of directors of hundreds of Offshore Companies. They were called the Panama Papers. So lets go back in time and see what the leak can tell us about our people of interest. Four of them are there. They have a history together and appear to be running a network of non Milton Companies across the globe. But many of these companies have something in common. Theyre linked to an office block in tbilisi called the pixel building. The paper trail ends here. Throughout all of our Panama Papers investigations, weve analysed thousands of offshore documents. And one person appears to have founded or registered many of these early non Milton Companies. Mr david kezerashvili. But who is this . Hes a former georgian politician. He was Defence Minister during the war against the russians in 2008. When he left office, he started his business career. Based in london, he cant return to georgia as he was found guilty of corruption in what he claims is a politically motivated case. Accepting this, the british courts refused to extradite him. In georgia, hes remembered by some as mr offshore and the leaked non Milton Company data shows he sat at the centre of this network of Offshore Companies. 0ur men were given senior positions in these companies, which mr kezerashvili registered all over the world. Multiple roads seem to lead to him. Weve been invited back here by europol, who have zeroed in on some of the same people as us, and now were joining them on call centre raids. Simultaneous actions are taking place in ukraine, albania and north macedonia. We have no idea where were going. We were told to follow the car in front of us. The last time they did a raid like this, the bosses of the call centre were tipped off. So everything depends on secrecy. Weve driven into this Parking Garage and the german and Georgian Police are coordinating their actions. The prosecutors havejust walked in, but they told us that the place has already been secured. Would you like to speak to us . About what happened here . I cant understand it. You dont understand anything im saying, even though you just responded to me in perfect english . Did you know that this was allegedly a scam . Im not wishing you to take this video, right now and im not responding on your questions. What was the brand that you were selling here . We are quite happy with the situation right now as far as we can examine all the materials and the people we see, some evidence is clear. Evidence as far as the German Market is targeted, and obviously we see quite good hints to such an activity here. Right now, there are 30 raids across georgia. In the centre of tbilisi there, hitting a company we already know, mg capital. These screens are really interesting. Here you have a back office of a brand called eco sales, and you have the names of people that they were calling to get money from them. And here you have four british names here. So you can see that this is just a call centre that was allegedly scamming people all over the world. And lets see if we can see how much money they got from various people. Looking through our footage afterwards, ifound a note. No liabilities wants to buy a property, not discussing number, but has savings. Savings less than 10k, very expletive. For the german prosecutors, this has been four years in the planning and now theyve time to reflect. We know that, of course, for example, the fca in Great Britain say scams are the biggest threat for private investors. But on the other hand, we see due to our actions and our investigations in the last years, that there are also some positive effects, that the perpetrators are more careful and at least do not target the German Market as much as they did maybe two or three years ago. The overall damage is still in the hundreds of millions. Probably we can talk about billions, not only in germany but all over the world. We noticed a lot of british victims on the Computer Screens in the call centre. If you ended your investigation, where would that leave them . We have to be realistic. We cant save the world. Its already pretty hard work to save the German Market. There should be some kind of Law Enforcement in Great Britain, as far as i know. So thats their main responsibility. And to see it from a legal perspective, its not in ourjurisdiction. The raids led the news in georgia. 0ur mr green gave a Press Conference after one of the scam brands was raided in an office he owns. He says that his company rents out spaces and offices to other companies, but he doesnt know what a company who rents the office really does. So hes saying that he was just renting space to another call centre, but he owns mg capital . Yes, we know that he founded mg capital. And also he mentions that he was a partner, Business Partner of david kezerashvili. So we know that the links between these men go way back thanks to the Panama Papers leak. Then the pattern was that kezerashvili was the link between our men. But if the real links were confidential before, might they be confidential again . So fast forward to the present. The men all seem to have been key figures in the milton Group Running or owning Tech Companies and or the scam brand. But does Kezerashvili Fit in now . Well, hes not really on the paperwork. Hes connected to this company through his Venture Capital firm. He owned the branding and website for this tech company, which built the Trading Platform and website of everyfx. The Email Servers for his personal companies were held on the same private servers as those for everfx, axios and new age. He owns the building in kyiv, where the original call centre was moved to in 2020 and where they sold everfx and where mr 0range had an office where many of these companies were housed and which was raided in the europol action in ukraine. And this gives us a hint of kezerashvilis social circle. At a wedding in 2018, he was pictured with mr. Orange and mr red, as well as other key milton figures. He also has interesting social media connections. Kezerashvili regularly likes and shares facebook and linkedin posts from several tech groups as well as from everfx and its successor. And his facebook friends have included at least 45 other people linked to some of these companies. And of course, hes also facebook friends with mr pink, mr blue, mrgreen and mr0range. And mr red . Well, thats his cousin. We went to mr kezerashvilis £18 million house in london, to see if he could answer these questions about his role. Hi, im a journalist. Id like to speak with david kezerashvili. Is he available . Hes not available . 0k. Thank you. He wouldnt talk to us, but his lawyers made clear that. Neither of these two responded to our questions. The investigation alex and i started has culminated in police raids on Milton Offices across five countries. Closing down 15 call centres on thursday, closing down 15 call centres. But only five suspects were arrested in those countries. All just employees. Which is little consolation to the victims of milton. I feel completely embarrassed at how well i was fooled. I just dont want my friends to know how stupid ive been. Ive always worked really hard for everything ive earned in my life. Losing 30,000 to a bunch of scammers. A bunch of scammers. I was absolutely devastated by it. Ijust dont feel that i could confidently trust anybody again. Its taken us well over a year to uncover the identities of some of the biggest players we believe are involved in this billion dollar scam. Wading through this complex and sophisticated tangle of Shell Companies, digital evidence and Crypto Wallets, we felt able to name them for the First Time Since the raids. We felt able to name them for the first time. Since the raids, alex has been tracking miltons Crypto Wallets. So their volume is lower. The volume is lower. So that means the raids have had a big impact. Yes, i think it is, because we see a very significant decrease in the turnover. Good for victims. So the raids did have an impact. But our recent analysis suggests the scams suggests the scams are picking up again, now at nearly 85 of what they were. So can this billion dollar scam ever be stopped . The money that flows from these kind of crimes through the Offshore World into the pockets of a small number of people, is so attractive and so corrupting that its incredibly hard for any society in any political system to conjure up the wherewithal to stop it. Four months after the raids, were not aware of any prosecutions of any of the people weve identified. But alex and i are not about to give up. Hello. Weve had some heavy showers developing through the day across parts of east yorkshire, east anglia and south east england. Out to the west, this bank of cloud has been gradually working its Way Eastwards, Turning The Skies Hazy across Western Areas and bringing some patchy light rain and drizzle into Northern Ireland and the Western Isles. And that will continue to slowly push its Way Eastwards through this evening and overnight. The light rain and drizzle will become increasingly patchy and, eventually, tend to fizzle out. Some clearer skies at first across eastern counties, the showers fading here. But, equally, we could also see some mist and some fog under those clear skies, and it will be a chilly night for parts of east anglia and south east england. Temperatures perhaps down to two or three celsius. Elsewhere, temperatures generally holding up to between four and eight celsius. 0n into sunday, and were underneath this area of high pressure, and we start to pull in more of a southerly wind. So a milderair direction, pushing that milder air across the uk. But also a moister direction, so we will see much more cloud through sunday. And, actually, a fairly grey start for many on sunday. A lot of cloud out west with some patchy rain and drizzle. Mist and low cloud for the hills too. Any early mist and fog for Eastern Coastal counties will tend to lift and, actually, well see some sunshine developing here, and that too will tend to extend north and westwards through the day. So we will see some spells of sunshine coming through the cloud and, where we do, temperatures rising to 16, maybe 17 celsius. So then, through sunday evening, its a fairly quiet night, but also, once again, a fairly cloudy night, so that will keep the temperatures up a little bit higher. And then, for the week ahead, well, its looking mainly dry for most of us. Very little, if any, rain across the uk. Some good spells of sunshine. And actually, for many, away from eastern coasts, with the breeze off the sea, it will be feeling a litle bit warmer. So this is how monday shapes up. Once again, were under this area of high pressure, keeping the atlantic fronts at bay. Still a fair amount of cloud around on monday morning. Some mist and some murk, particularly for Western Areas, and perhaps even still some drizzle through the day for the Western Isles and parts of north west england. But for many, its a mainly dry day. And, actually, once weve got rid of the cloud through the morning, we should see some spells of sunshine come the afternoon. And, again, that will help temperatures quite widely into the low mid teens, if not 16 or 17 celsius in the best of sunshine. And, actually, as i mentioned earlier, for much of the week ahead, its looking mostly dry, with some spells of sunshine. And after whats been been a fairly cool and wet week, things are looking a bit warmer too. Live from washington, this is bbc news. At least 30 people are dead and hundreds of others injured in sudan, as the army and Paramilitary Forces clash in the capital khartoum. Disruption of the grand national, as Animal Rights protestors storm the racecourse. And after it was almost destroyed by fire, we see the remarkable restoration of the Notre Dame Cathedral in paris. Hello, im helena humphrey, good to have you with us. We start in sudan, where heavy fighting is taking place between two Rival Factions of the military. Gunfire and explosions rocked the capital, khartoum
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.