NEWS: SFO charges five over disastrous collapse of law firm Axiom, involving £60M of client money

Regulatory Watch News

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  FMA issued more warnings to investors in 2024 than ever before – trading platform fraud is sadly a “growth area”

  FMA

  December 23, 2024

  Fraudsters are also “early adopters” and are the first to make use of new technologies and to exploit them for illegal purposes. Fake crypto-investments, fraudulent trading platforms and bogus celebrity endorsements using deepfake technology are a booming area. These are the findings of statistics compiled by the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) about consumer enquiries and investor warnings in the past year. “In 2024, too many people have fallen for fraudsters’ schemes in the hope of making money quickly”, remarked the FMA’s Executive Directors Helmut Ettl and Eduard Müller. “Even if their methods are modern, they use the same old stories to lure in their victims. High returns with a low risk. Secret investment tricks that the banks won’t tell you about. And which you need to take advantage of quickly, and not asking questions. And so on and so forth: if something sounds too good to be true, then it is probably a lie,” Ettl and Müller added.

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  SFC bans fund manager Ng Ka Shun for life and fines him $1.7 million for serious misconduct

  Securities and Futures Commission

  December 23, 2024

  The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has banned Mr Ng Ka Shun, responsible officer (RO) of Agg. Asset Management Limited (Agg), for life and fined him $1.7 million for window-dressing Agg’s financial resources and mismanaging two funds (Notes 1 to 3). Window-dressing financial resources The SFC found that Ng began window-dressing Agg’s financial resources when the firm submitted its licence application. He misled the SFC into believing that Agg had satisfied the financial requirements for a licence by window-dressing the firm’s liquid capital as of 31 March 2017.

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  Japanese national charged over 9kg meth import

  Australia Federal Police

  December 23, 2024

  A Japanese man appeared before Perth Magistrates Court yesterday (22 December, 2024) charged after allegedly importing 9kg of methamphetamine into Australia. ABF officers allegedly detected the drugs on Saturday 21 December, 2024, after selecting the man, 32, for a baggage examination when he arrived at Perth Airport on a flight from New Zealand. ABF officers conducted an x-ray of the man’s suitcases, which revealed anomalies. An ABF detector dog then gave a positive reaction to the baggage.