25.04.2024
TradeWin24 Owners Are Robbing Clients to Pay Themselves Huge Dividends!
Whenever the average Serbian investor begins to think that nothing on the Serbian financial market, or the nearly dead Serbian brokerage market, can still surprise them, they should always remind themselves that the scheming group behind TradeWin24 never sleeps and always finds a new original way to repeat its misconduct toward clients and once again spread anxiety among investors in Serbia, because it has long been clear that a wolf may change its fur but never its nature. Over the past few weeks, dozens of frightened TradeWin24 clients have contacted us seeking help and possible advice after being trapped by TradeWin24, which is now in collapse after being cut off by Interactive Brokers and turning into a private broker for the owners and directors of TradeWin24 for various schemes, while becoming less and less a broker for “small” investors seeking services for the purchase and sale of securities. If it ever really was one.
How did TradeWin24 carry out this new fraud against its small clients? According to what now former TradeWin24 clients wrote to us directly, and what was also summarized on the social network Reddit, in February 2024 TradeWin24 sent its clients an email notice with the following content. :
How did TradeWin24 carry out this new fraud against its small clients? According to what now former TradeWin24 clients wrote to us directly, and what was also summarized on the social network Reddit, in February 2024 TradeWin24 sent its clients an email notice with the following content. :
(Translated info from Tradewin24: BDD Tradewin 24 AD Belgrade operates in accordance with the legal regulations of the Republic of Serbia, and we are currently in the process of aligning our operations with the applicable laws of the Republic of Serbia. The final step of this process is the transfer of client portfolios from the current investment accounts to new ones. The transfer will begin on 13.02.2024 and will last for 4 working days. During these four days, trading will be unavailable to you, and we kindly ask that you contact us if you intend to trade during this period so that we may postpone the transfer of your portfolio. The trading process itself will remain the same. The TW24 team will continue to be available to assist you with trading and related processes. Also, commissions will not be changed. The transition to the new account will also bring an easier method for depositing and withdrawing funds from the investment account, and you will be informed about this later when you receive an email with your access details.)
As summarized by Reddit user “Suitable-Door6751” in a thread on one of Serbia’s more prominent financial forums, www.reddit.com/r/finansije/comments/1bk9axd/tradewin24_je_najgori_broker_u_istoriji_svih/, TradeWin24 informed users of the following:
TradeWin24 told clients that it had opened new accounts with new account numbers for them and transferred their shares there, without the client’s written consent.
It introduced a new monthly maintenance charge of EUR 10.
It effectively blackmailed clients into either closing their positions and thereby paying Tradewin24 an additional predatory commission, or paying EUR 100 per ISIN so that Tradewin24 could transfer the client’s shares to Interactive Brokers. (ISIN is the unique international identification code for each security.) Whichever unwilling option the client chose, it is clear that Tradewin24 further filled its own pockets with a one-time financial injection.
What is actually behind all of this? When we looked more closely into the matter, we came to shocking findings. According to sources close to circles around Tradewin24 itself, there are several reasons. The first reason is that Tradewin24 had been operating with IBKR illegally in Serbia, because it took deposits from Serbian investors and transferred them to its master account at Interactive Brokers, even though under the Capital Market Law it has no license for that, since it is regulated by the Securities Commission exclusively for carrying out activities on the territory of Serbia. It was thus effectively breaking the law by behaving like an ordinary Serbian retail investor, even though it is a regulated broker and a legal entity in Serbia. Why the Securities Commission sleeps and does not prevent such manipulations by Tradewin24, instead always reacting too late only after TradeWin24, that is, the former Sinteza, has already carried out the fraud, is a serious question that deserves much deeper discussion.
The second reason was a warning from Interactive Brokers to Tradewin24 that reselling services at prices ten times higher, while at the same time ruining the reputation of the world’s largest brokerage house, would not be tolerated, and that it would lose client rights if it continued to abuse them. To recall, Tradewin24 as a Serbian broker has an ordinary trading account with Interactive Brokers, and under that account it attaches subaccounts for small Serbian clients who do not understand that they are not clients of Interactive Brokers, but of Tradewin24, which itself has the account at Interactive Brokers. Which further means that Interactive Brokers does not guarantee your funds — Tradewin24 does. And that means bye-bye to your money.
The third reason is Tradewin24 directors/owners insatiable love for client money and a kind of manic kleptomania, usually defined as “a mental disorder involving an inability to resist stealing things that do not belong to that person, even though the stolen items are generally not needed.” But in TradeWin24’s version of that disorder, it means stealing things they very much do need — in this case, client money.
What kind of manic kleptomaniacs they are is best shown by the fact that while at the same time informing clients about this new armed robbery, in other words about new and invented fees, the owners of TradeWin24 failed to inform clients that they themselves would also be bearing the cost of some kind of advance-paid dividend drawn from what only they call “undistributed profit from 2023.”
TradeWin24 told clients that it had opened new accounts with new account numbers for them and transferred their shares there, without the client’s written consent.
It introduced a new monthly maintenance charge of EUR 10.
It effectively blackmailed clients into either closing their positions and thereby paying Tradewin24 an additional predatory commission, or paying EUR 100 per ISIN so that Tradewin24 could transfer the client’s shares to Interactive Brokers. (ISIN is the unique international identification code for each security.) Whichever unwilling option the client chose, it is clear that Tradewin24 further filled its own pockets with a one-time financial injection.
What is actually behind all of this? When we looked more closely into the matter, we came to shocking findings. According to sources close to circles around Tradewin24 itself, there are several reasons. The first reason is that Tradewin24 had been operating with IBKR illegally in Serbia, because it took deposits from Serbian investors and transferred them to its master account at Interactive Brokers, even though under the Capital Market Law it has no license for that, since it is regulated by the Securities Commission exclusively for carrying out activities on the territory of Serbia. It was thus effectively breaking the law by behaving like an ordinary Serbian retail investor, even though it is a regulated broker and a legal entity in Serbia. Why the Securities Commission sleeps and does not prevent such manipulations by Tradewin24, instead always reacting too late only after TradeWin24, that is, the former Sinteza, has already carried out the fraud, is a serious question that deserves much deeper discussion.
The second reason was a warning from Interactive Brokers to Tradewin24 that reselling services at prices ten times higher, while at the same time ruining the reputation of the world’s largest brokerage house, would not be tolerated, and that it would lose client rights if it continued to abuse them. To recall, Tradewin24 as a Serbian broker has an ordinary trading account with Interactive Brokers, and under that account it attaches subaccounts for small Serbian clients who do not understand that they are not clients of Interactive Brokers, but of Tradewin24, which itself has the account at Interactive Brokers. Which further means that Interactive Brokers does not guarantee your funds — Tradewin24 does. And that means bye-bye to your money.
The third reason is Tradewin24 directors/owners insatiable love for client money and a kind of manic kleptomania, usually defined as “a mental disorder involving an inability to resist stealing things that do not belong to that person, even though the stolen items are generally not needed.” But in TradeWin24’s version of that disorder, it means stealing things they very much do need — in this case, client money.
What kind of manic kleptomaniacs they are is best shown by the fact that while at the same time informing clients about this new armed robbery, in other words about new and invented fees, the owners of TradeWin24 failed to inform clients that they themselves would also be bearing the cost of some kind of advance-paid dividend drawn from what only they call “undistributed profit from 2023.”
Believe it or not, the dividend decision was adopted in the middle of the fiscal year, and on top of that by relying on the distribution of part of the profit, meaning they did not even want to wait for the end of the year and the annual financial report, but instead the money had to be distributed already in July. We suspect this was due to certain debts, trips to warm summer destinations, rides in inflatable boats along the coast of Kotor, and the financing of shipments of fictitious southern fruit, which some TradeWin24 directors also deal with incognito, as we have previously written.
A hefty dividend of exactly 13,823,000 dinars — slightly more than EUR 100,000 — was distributed evenly among the predatory group of hidden and visible owners, while innocent small TradeWin24 clients effectively financed it. In other words, the kleptomaniacs at TradeWin24 trapped small clients with newly invented transfer fees for moving to Interactive Brokers, imposed a monthly fee of EUR 10 on them, even though the absence of this very fee had been one of the things keeping some small clients with TradeWin24, and redirected everything into their own pockets without even waiting for the final annual report.
Grifters at TradeWin24 were not bothered by the fact that through this robbery they reduced the company’s financial capital from just under 42 million dinars to 20.3 million, highlighted in red on the chart, which is yet another proof that TradeWin24 is an octopus designed for emptying the pockets of small clients and the Serbian state while enriching a handful of owners who are at the same time also the directors. In the following texts we will also deal with the polished and manipulated financial report of TradeWin24 for 2023, because it has been a long time since we read anything so comical.
Of course, all data from TradeWin24’s financial statements should always be treated with caution, because even earlier, when they were submitted in the name of Sinteza Invest Group, they proved to be completely false.
The only thing we are certain of is that the dividends were paid out, and that the clients were fooled once again.
A hefty dividend of exactly 13,823,000 dinars — slightly more than EUR 100,000 — was distributed evenly among the predatory group of hidden and visible owners, while innocent small TradeWin24 clients effectively financed it. In other words, the kleptomaniacs at TradeWin24 trapped small clients with newly invented transfer fees for moving to Interactive Brokers, imposed a monthly fee of EUR 10 on them, even though the absence of this very fee had been one of the things keeping some small clients with TradeWin24, and redirected everything into their own pockets without even waiting for the final annual report.
Grifters at TradeWin24 were not bothered by the fact that through this robbery they reduced the company’s financial capital from just under 42 million dinars to 20.3 million, highlighted in red on the chart, which is yet another proof that TradeWin24 is an octopus designed for emptying the pockets of small clients and the Serbian state while enriching a handful of owners who are at the same time also the directors. In the following texts we will also deal with the polished and manipulated financial report of TradeWin24 for 2023, because it has been a long time since we read anything so comical.
Of course, all data from TradeWin24’s financial statements should always be treated with caution, because even earlier, when they were submitted in the name of Sinteza Invest Group, they proved to be completely false.
The only thing we are certain of is that the dividends were paid out, and that the clients were fooled once again.