TB Options’ Director goes to jail as UK clampdown on binary options fraud continues
Lee Denton was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court to four and a half years in jail for money laundering.
The City of London Police today announced that the director of a fake binary options company which defrauded victims out of £475,000 had been jailed.
Lee Denton, 33, of Pollards Oak Crescent, Oxted, Surrey, was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court to four and a half years in jail for money laundering.
The police investigation showed that Denton had set up a fake company called TB Options Limited in August 2015, which purported to be a binary options trading platform for investment into commodities like precious metals and oil and foreign exchange. The entity claimed to be operating from an office located in the City of London.
The firm contacted the victims through cold calling and offered them a chance to invest in the commodities, claiming that they could make a profit of 20% a month on their investments. Victims were instructed to make an initial minimum investment of £5,000 and they were led to believe that staff at the company were betting on their behalf as to whether the price of the commodity they’d invested in would rise or fall. There was no binary options service being provided – Denton was receiving the funds into several bank accounts and a PayPal account he had opened to facilitate the fraud.
TB Options refused to return the money or close individual accounts when requested. Victims were also told that they could not withdraw their money until they had been an investor with the company for 12 months. Eventually, the company stopped all contact with customers, the website of the firm was taken down and the company’s phone line was disconnected.
A total of £192,000 was withdrawn from the bank accounts and PayPal account set up by Denton. It was discovered that a part of the sum was spent in bars, restaurants, high end hotels and on designer goods.
The action against Denton marks another example of UK authorities’ efforts to clamp down on binary options fraud. In July this year, the Insolvency Service confirmed that binary options firm Eclipse Finance Limited was shut down over false and misleading claims.
In November last year, Metro Options Limited was wound up. At the end of October, the UK High Court wound up binary options scam firms behind Magnum Options, following an investigation by the Insolvency Service.
Let’s recall that on October 17, 2017, the City of London Police conducted a day of action, which involved visiting 20 offices with the City of London Corporation’s Trading Standards.
