US authorities charge Yukom’s former CEO Lee Elbaz for role in binary options fraud
“This is not cemetery here! It’s a boiler room!… Don’t leave the money! Just take it!” – says an email by a representative of BinaryBook, a company supervised by Lee Elbaz, aka Lena Green.
Further to FinanceFeeds’ article about the latest developments in the US proceedings against Lee Elbaz, former CEO of Israel-based company Yukom Communications, a purported binary options sales and marketing company, the Department of Justice has announced that Elbaz was charged in an indictment filed on March 22.
Elbaz was arrested in September 2017. She was charged in the District of Maryland with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud.
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 indictment alleges that Yukom provided investor “retention” services for two websites, known as BinaryBook and BigOption, promoting and marketing binary options, and that 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 using BinaryBook and BigOption by falsely claiming to represent the interests of investors but that, in fact, the owners of BinaryBook and BigOption profited when investors lost money.
In addition, the defendant misrepresented the suitability of and expected return on investments through BinaryBook and BigOption and provided investors with false names and qualifications. Lee Elbaz was usually Lena Green.
Yukom used “Call Scripts”, such as:
- “my company is very interested in helping you generate the biggest possible profit in the account”;
- “as your account manager my goal for you is to be as profitable as possible since my pay check is based on your profits”.
In or about September 29, 2015, a representative of the company sent an email to other representatives regarding a sales “marathon”. The representative commented in the email:
“This is not cemetery here! It’s a boiler room!… Don’t leave the money! Just take it!”
The representatives were falsely claiming to be working from London and were misrepresenting whether and how investors could withdraw funds from their accounts. Representatives of BinaryBook and BigOption, working under Elbaz’s supervision, misrepresented the terms of so-called “bonuses,” “risk free trades” and “insured trades,” and deceptively used these supposed benefits in a manner that in fact harmed investors, according to the indictment.
The fight is not going to be an easy one, as the defense has put the stress on Elbaz’s lack of criminal record and the fact that the complainants in the case may be simply disgruntled clients that any company might have.
Elbaz faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine per count.
