The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) says its cyber surveillance team recently disrupted an unregistered derivatives trading scheme.
The AMF said Friday that, at its request, the Bureau de décision et de révision prohibited a firm known as DBSG Fonds d’investissement inc. (DBSG), and several individuals, Younes Ben-Ghabrit, Nader Zebib, Sid-Ali Djenadi and Ahmed-Yassin Sedjal, from trading in derivatives and carrying on activities as a dealer or advisor. It also ordered them to remove any advertising from the Internet and to close any website they used to solicit investors.
The regulator says that these orders were the result of work by its cyber-surveillance team, which uncovered Internet ads encouraging consumers to invest in DBSG by guaranteeing a 10% return per month. The AMF says that none of the individuals involved with the firm was registered with the AMF, and that DBSG has never filed a prospectus.
“Younes Ben-Ghabrit, a director and shareholder of DBSG, admitted all the AMF’s allegations against him, including having incorporated DBSG and encouraging individuals to invest in it,” it says, adding that the others helped induce people to invest in the company.
The prohibition orders against Sedjal will only be in effect for one year, it notes, as the Bureau considered that him to be a victim in this matter.