US authorities arrest binary options fraudster Jared J. Davis
The fraudulent binary options business used various trade names, including OptionMint, OptionKing and OptionQueen.
United States authorities continue to take action against binary options scams and the people behind them. Jared J. Davis, head of an international binary options scheme was arrested and a 19-count federal indictment unsealed, charging him with defrauding investors out of at least $10 million.
Under the indictment, Davis and others ran a fraudulent binary options investment scheme between 2012 and 2016 through Erie Marketing LLC, headquartered in Sandusky, where Davis was involved in various real estate ventures and businesses. The options business used various trade names, including OptionMint, OptionKing and OptionQueen. Davis’ binary options businesses were not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Department of Justice explains.
Davis was arrested early Tuesday morning at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
“This defendant portrayed himself as a legitimate investment broker when he was really no better than a simple con man,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney David Sierleja. “He fleeced his victims out of $10 million by manipulating trading conditions, falsely telling investors his salespeople were financial analysts and using offshore companies to spend money as fast as it came in.”
Let’s recall that in September last year, the US authorities arrested Lee Elbaz, the CEO of Yukom Communications, a purported binary options sales and marketing company operating on behalf of BinaryBook and BigOption. According to the Indictment, Yukom Communications provided investor “retention” for BinaryBook and BigOption, promoting and marketing binary options, and those binary options were fraudulently sold and marketed. The indictment further alleges that in her role as CEO of Yukom, Elbaz, along with her co-conspirators and subordinates, misled investors by falsely claiming to represent the interests of investors but that, in fact, the owners of BinaryBook and BigOption profited when investors lost money.
From in or about May 2014 through in or about June 2017, Elbaz was an employee of Yukom and served in various capacities, including as Chief Executive Officer from at least in or about March 2016 through December 2016. In startling statements made during the detention hearing of Elbaz, her counsel stated that “CEO in Israel may not mean the same thing here” and that she used the designation to simply to “make the customers feel important”.
The Court has recently announced the schedule of the pretrial proceedings against Ms Elbaz. The two-week jury trial is set to take place on January 7, 2019.
