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Couple of guys in Israel just got 6 months of probation for running the world's largest Botnet for Hire.

mywittyname 6y ago
And they'll probably get some juicy government contracts for their trouble. Six months is just long enough to show them who's in charge here (the Israeli government), but not long enough for their skills to atrophy so much that they are useless.
Animats 6y ago
Israel is soft on crime if the victims are outside Israel. The "binary options" industry depended on this.[1] At one point, 40% of the Israeli financial sector was binary options scams. Only after heavy foreign pressure and arrests in the US and EU was there a weak crackdown. The Times of Israel ran a long series of articles and finally broke up that racket. Their first story, "The Wolves of Tel Aviv"[2], blew open the scale of the scams. Amazingly, it was legal at the time to scam people outside Israel. Times of Israel: "The binary options industry, which is estimated to have employed more than 10,000 people, was outlawed by the Knesset in October 2017 largely as a result of The Times of Israel’s reporting, beginning with a March 2016 article entitled “The Wolves of Tel Aviv.”" "But the industry has not gone away. Many of its operatives have reinvented themselves as “blockchain,” “fintech,” or “cannabis” entrepreneurs, while some of the call centers offering fraudulent investments have moved abroad and now offer fraudulent forex, cryptocurrencies or other investments from such cities as Kyiv, Sofia and Tbilisi." "The binary options industry operated in Israel with impunity for a decade, stealing billions of dollars from millions of people around the world. While US law enforcement continues to tackle the fraud, and has convicted several Israelis and indicted others, Israel has yet to prosecute any of its orchestrators or operatives." [1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/dont-let-israel-become-the-promised-land-of-impunity-for-crooks-and-fraudsters/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/dont-let-israel-become-the-pro... [2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels-vast-amoral-binary-options-scam-exposed/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels...

And they'll probably get some juicy government contracts for their trouble. Six months is just long enough to show them who's in charge here (the Israeli government), but not long enough for their skills to atrophy so much that they are useless.

Animats 6y ago

Israel is soft on crime if the victims are outside Israel. The "binary options" industry depended on this.[1] At one point, 40% of the Israeli financial sector was binary options scams. Only after heavy foreign pressure and arrests in the US and EU was there a weak crackdown. The Times of Israel ran a long series of articles and finally broke up that racket. Their first story, "The Wolves of Tel Aviv"[2], blew open the scale of the scams. Amazingly, it was legal at the time to scam people outside Israel. Times of Israel: "The binary options industry, which is estimated to have employed more than 10,000 people, was outlawed by the Knesset in October 2017 largely as a result of The Times of Israel’s reporting, beginning with a March 2016 article entitled “The Wolves of Tel Aviv.”" "But the industry has not gone away. Many of its operatives have reinvented themselves as “blockchain,” “fintech,” or “cannabis” entrepreneurs, while some of the call centers offering fraudulent investments have moved abroad and now offer fraudulent forex, cryptocurrencies or other investments from such cities as Kyiv, Sofia and Tbilisi." "The binary options industry operated in Israel with impunity for a decade, stealing billions of dollars from millions of people around the world. While US law enforcement continues to tackle the fraud, and has convicted several Israelis and indicted others, Israel has yet to prosecute any of its orchestrators or operatives." [1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/dont-let-israel-become-the-promised-land-of-impunity-for-crooks-and-fraudsters/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/dont-let-israel-become-the-pro... [2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels-vast-amoral-binary-options-scam-exposed/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels...