In so doing, the panel held that plain error review applied because Ms. Elbaz did not preserve this argument. Elbaz now raises the same arguments again. The lawsuit continues at the the Fourth Circuit U. Your email address will not be published. FNG — Forex, CFD and Crypto trading industry news. Breaking News Saxo Bank to launch new Track and Trace feature for portfolio transfers.

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Regulatory News Binary options fraudster Lee Elbaz challenges prison sentence again Maria Nikolova 0 Comments July 29, Maria Nikolova Maria has been engaged in journalism for more than 13 years, providing Forex industry coverage for the past seven years. Before joining FNG she was Managing Editor at FinanceFeeds. Prior to that, she worked at LeapRate.

Maria has a Philosophy degree from the St. Kliment Ochridski university in Sofia. She has specialized in Cognitive Science in Vienna. Her interests include psychology, AI, and linguistics.

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Elbaz, who has been in jail since her conviction in August, was brought to the court in an orange jumpsuit. She sobbed intermittently throughout the hearing, and grasped the arm of one of her attorneys as the judge announced the sentence.

Elbaz was the CEO of Yukom Communications Ltd. She is one of 21 indicted defendants who worked for Yukom, which operated the websites BigOption and BinaryBook, and was the first to be tried. Elbaz was arrested by the FBI on September 14, , as she got off a plane at JFK airport in New York. Five former employees of Yukom Communications Ltd.

and Numaris Communication Ltd. in Israel — Lissa Mel, Shira Uzan, Liora Welles, Austin Smith and Yair Hadar — signed plea deals with the US government. All but Mel testified at the Elbaz trial on behalf of the prosecution, saying that Elbaz instructed them to lie to investors in order to get them to deposit as much money as possible, and to do everything possible to prevent them from withdrawing their funds.

Fifteen additional defendants were indicted in November. Ronen Roytman, the head of Numaris Communication, entered a non-prosecution agreement with the US government. An email instructed BinaryBook sales representatives to target retirees, Social Security recipients, pension holders and veterans as clients, according to court filings accompanying guilty pleas by former employees.

Justice Department prosecutor Henry Van Dyck said most of the victims lost everything they invested. He said that videos from inside Yukom showed that employees enjoyed their work, and that Elbaz fostered a work environment where it was fun to defraud investors. He also borrowed 30, for his investment and afterwards had to refinance his home. The judge said that Elbaz and others specifically targeted vulnerable people, including the elderly, and tried to get people addicted to trading like in a casino.

He said that Elbaz would suggest that clients use their retirement funds for investments. Herzog and Cohen, who have both been indicted, are still at large. Pollack had asked for a sentence of five years in prison for his client. Many of the fraudulent operatives have since moved their operations abroad, or switched to other scams, though Israeli law-enforcement authorities have proved unwilling or unable to prosecute more than a handful of alleged offenders.

By contrast, the US government is ratcheting up efforts to bring Israeli offenders to justice. I joined The Times of Israel after many years covering US and Israeli politics for Hebrew news outlets. I believe responsible coverage of Israeli politicians means presenting a degree view of their words and deeds — not only conveying what occurs, but also what that means in the broader context of Israeli society and the region. I believe Israel is stronger and more democratic when professional journalists do that tough job well.

Your support for our work by joining The Times of Israel Community helps ensure we can continue to do so.

Elbaz, 36, has been charged in the District of Maryland with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud, according to a press release by the US Justice Department. Each of these four charges carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The indictment also alleges that Elbaz, together with her co-conspirators and subordinates, misled investors by falsely claiming that the company earned profits when the investor earned profits, when in fact the opposite was true.

Elbaz and her co-conspirators also allegedly misrepresented the return on investment from BinaryBook and BigOption and allegedly used aliases and said they were calling from London when in fact they were calling from Israel. Even as is, the indictment potentially carries more than ten years of imprisonment.

Carmon stressed that this is his personal interpretation of the indictment and that he does not have actual knowledge of this particular case. Elbaz was arrested by the FBI in September when she landed at JFK airport on her way to visit friends in the United States.

In lieu of the anticipated vacation, she has spent the last several months under house arrest at the home of her aunt in San Francisco. That is none of these things. It is a legitimate business, legal type of business in Israel as well as here. The ban took effect on January Sources have told The Times of Israel that some Israeli binary options companies have simply changed the product they are selling to cryptocurrency and ICOs, and continue to defraud customers using similar scripts and techniques.

Although Israeli police are cooperating with the FBI probe, they have taken little proactive action over the years to stop the fraud, which involved many thousands of operatives working for more than companies over a period of ten years. Although the widely fraudulent Israel-based industry is estimated to have involved the theft of billions of dollars from victims worldwide, nobody has ever been convicted in Israel of binary options fraud. Their occupation, to put it simply, is transferring money from the pockets of foreign residents to the pockets of Yukom.

Once the customer loses all his money, there are no traces that lead back to Yukom, its employees, or Israel. The ad was very professionally produced and mentioned that BigOption had won various industry prizes.

Yukom is the de facto operator of Bigoption, the complaint alleges. The plaintiffs claim that Lindsay Cole is in fact a young woman by the name of Liora Welles. Yukom acknowledged that Welles was its employee but not that she used the alias Lindsay Cole.

In their writ of defense, defendants Elbaz and Yukom asked to dismiss the lawsuit due to a lack of privity between the plaintiff and defendants. The defense further argued that binary options are a legitimate financial instrument throughout the world and that the plaintiff freely chose to invest in binary options.

He knew it was risky and kept putting in more money even after he lost a significant amount, the defense said. Lee Elbaz has recruited employees for binary options web site TitanTrade, suggesting that she worked there as well.

I joined The Times of Israel after many years covering US and Israeli politics for Hebrew news outlets. I believe responsible coverage of Israeli politicians means presenting a degree view of their words and deeds — not only conveying what occurs, but also what that means in the broader context of Israeli society and the region.

I believe Israel is stronger and more democratic when professional journalists do that tough job well. Your support for our work by joining The Times of Israel Community helps ensure we can continue to do so. So now we have a request. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.

Lee Elbaz, former CEO of Yukom Ltd. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories. Newsletter email address Get it By signing up, you agree to the terms. A Facebook photo of Lee Elbaz taken during her house arrest in San Francisco in January Facebook screenshot. In , Elbaz recruited employees for the binary options website TitanTrade. com Facebook screenshot. Thank you, Tal Schneider, Political Correspondent.

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Cookie settings ACCEPT. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. As per Court order entered on October 16, , the opening brief and appendix are due December 18, And any error would be harmless because losses suffered by United States victims exceeded the total loss attributed to Elbaz, and because the district court would have imposed the same sentence—which was a month downward variance from the advisory Guidelines range—even if it had miscalculated that range. It conducted the voir dire, denied the motion for a mistrial, and seated the alternate juror. But what he overheard affected him because it made him think that he might be wrong. Maria Nikolova Maria has been engaged in journalism for more than 13 years, providing Forex industry coverage for the past seven years.

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