Canadian regulator cautions against 2 digital currency scams

A Canadian provincial securities regulator has cautioned the public against two forex and digital currency brokers. The Manitoba Securities Commission claims that the two firms have been targeting residents of the province. The commission’s investigation has revealed a lot of inconsistencies with the two firms, leading it to believe that they may be scams.

The two are Jbcapitals and Halifax & Associates. In a statement, the securities regulator said it received complaints from Manitobans who Jbcapitals has targeted. After conducting its investigation, it found several inconsistencies with the two.

Jbcapitals operates a trading platform that purportedly offers over 200 assets, from digital currencies and stocks to indices and commodities. On its website, it also claims to offer up to 300:1 leverage. It claims to be based in Zug, Switzerland.

The MSC’s investigations revealed that the firm has been around for less than a year. Despite this, it claims to have longstanding experience in the securities market.

Jbcapitals has also been flagged as a scam in the past, with review site ForexBrokerz claiming that it has not proven it can assure the safety of the users’ funds.  Despite claiming to be based in Switzerland and Bulgaria, the firm has not been registered by regulators in either country.

The review states, “The missing regulation brings together with it uncertainty regarding the most crucial aspect of a brokerage – the safety of the clients’ funds. Also, brokers that don’t hold a legit forex license are not entitled to operate on any regulated financial market, such as the EU, US, Canada, Japan, etc. Nonetheless, it seems that JBCapitals illegally targets European investors, so it isn’t surprising that it was flagged by the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (Spain) as a potential scammer.”

Jbcapitals is allegedly owned and operated by Storm Complex Limited, a company that has been linked to other forex scams. The company operates Xcoinbroker and Mcoinmarket, two known forex scams.

Digital currency crime in Canada has been on the rise in recent years. In the most recent case, two Canadian men were sentenced to two years in prison for stealing BTC through a Twitter scam. The two defrauded an Oregon resident, posing as customer service representatives of HitBTC digital currency exchange.