Fake platforms, real losses: How UAE residents fall victim to online trading scams

A Khaleej Times (KT) investigation has uncovered an online trading syndicate in the UAE operating a high-stakes scam through fraudulent call centres, fake trading platforms, and shell companies set up to siphon investor funds.

Documents, testimonies, and internal communication show that the syndicate is behind a cluster of dodgy platforms including Sigma-One Capital, DuttFx, EVM Prime, UTrade, EVA Markets and Core Financial Markets among others that have left hundreds of investors in financial ruin in recent months.

Promoted through aggressive cold-calling and slick online dashboards, these platforms were never licensed by UAE regulators. Some didn’t even exist beyond a website and have since gone offline.

While KT cannot independently verify the full scale of the fraud, conversations with victims and insiders indicate losses running into millions of dollars. Several investors have filed police complaints or turned to the courts for recourse.

The network came under renewed scrutiny after KT published an exposé on Gulf First Commercial Brokers, which abruptly shut down and disappeared, leaving a trail of defrauded clients. In its aftermath, scores of whistleblowers, victims, and former staff stepped forward, triggering a deeper probe.

Deceptive brokerage model

Central to the scam is a deceptive brokerage model known as the B-book system. Unlike licensed brokers who pass trades into the real market (A-book), B-book brokers bet against their own clients and profit when investors lose.

“You’re not trading in the real market,” explained a former Gulf First employee on conditions of anonymity. “You’re gambling against the house, and the house is rigged.”

To tilt the odds even further, brokers manipulate trades by delaying executions, widening spreads, triggering premature stop-losses, and sometimes even showing fake profits to lure clients into investing more.

Some investors were even shown instruments like ‘wheat.spot’ that don’t exist.

“We can’t say we’re going to steal your money,” said another ex-relationship manager. “So we make it look like you lost it in a bad trade. Then we blame you, say you didn’t follow instructions or misunderstood them. Once your account is empty, we cut off contact. If you persist, they may even turn hostile.”

And who would know that better than the victims? AK, a Dubai resident, said he lost Dh150,000 across three platforms recently. When he confronted his assigned “relationship manager”, the man laughed:
“Do you even know how many zeroes are in one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dirhams?” The call, he said, ended in a barrage of expletives and threats. “That voice still rings in my head,” AK told KT, sharing an audio recording of the threats.  “They built my trust over months, then flipped overnight.”

SJ, who reportedly lost $232,000 to Sigma-One Capital, said his agent not only pressured him into risky hedging positions but also manipulated the trades.

The stories of AK and SJ are far from unique. Dozens of victims have described similar tactics, each steered by a carefully scripted playbook originating from Dubai-based call centres.

Operational backbone

These call centres form the operational backbone of the scam. KT has verified the existence of at least seven such centres across the city, each staffed with anywhere between 50 and 200 telesales agents.

Internal communications show they are part of the same syndicate. For legal reasons, KT is withholding the names of the centres and individuals involved.

Every morning, buses pick up staff from across the city and drop them at sites like IMPZ and Business Bay, where briefings begin at 9:15 am.

“We were told: avoid locals and government officials as it’s too risky,” says 26-year-old Mohammad Zubair (name changed), who quit after witnessing a client lose $30,000.

Agents are given daily quotas to convince residents to deposit a minimum of $1,000. “Close before the 10th of the month and you get Dh900. Later clients earn Dh200,” said a former employee.

“Salaries and commissions, always paid in cash, arrived in sacks. Food was served within the premises,” he added.

Zubair, who worked briefly at the Business Bay office, called it “haram money”.

Much of the money collected by these call centres is funnelled into a network of shell companies posing as legitimate businesses, ranging from software firms to e-commerce fronts.

A recurring address on payment invoices is Saih Shuaib, Dubai. KT found this location listed in documents from several ventures, including a software firm that billed a Sigma-One victim for Dh18,350, and an e-commerce outfit called Core White Marketing. None of these companies were found operating at the stated address.

One Keralite expat said he transferred Dh500,000, savings meant for his child’s education, believing he was investing through Gulf First Commercial Brokers into a platform called Core Financial Markets.
“Now the website doesn’t even load,” he said.

“We were told these companies were authorised to route our money to the platform. We believed them,” added another victim who lost Dh175,000.

Currently, call centre agents are steering investors toward a new entity called Grow Plus Markets, which claims to be registered in the Comoros Union and also lists the Saih Shuaib address in its paperwork. But a site visit by KT found no such company there. Like others named in this investigation, Grow Plus Markets is not licensed by any UAE regulator, including the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) or the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA). A comment from the SCA was not readily available.

On its website, the SCA warns investors against individuals forging documents falsely attributed to the authority, including those bearing its logo and fake signatures. These documents often relate to financing and loans that fall outside the SCA’s regulatory scope. The authority urges the public to verify the status of any company via its official list of licensed entities.

In 2018, a Dubai court sentenced Indian expat Sydney Lemos and his accountant to 517 years in prison for running Exential, a bogus forex scheme that promised 120 per cent annual returns. Around the same time, Malik Noureed Awan, CEO of MMA Forex in Dubai was sentenced to two years in jail on charges of fraud.

Proxy owners

Since then, scam operators have adapted. No longer fronting the schemes themselves, they now hide behind layers of shell companies and proxy owners — a strategy designed to distance themselves from liability.

Investigations show that the individuals listed on the trade licenses of these firms are often just figureheads with no real role or authority.

In several cases, those named on official documents flee the country long before the scam surfaces. By the time complaints are filed or verdicts issued, the damage is done.

Abu Dhabi resident Imran Moghul, who lost Dh140,000 to DuttFx, recently won a court case. Last month, a three-month jail term followed by deportation was handed to the man in whose name the DuttFx bank account was held, as well as the relationship manager who handled Imran’s trades. But for Imran, the verdict brought little solace.

“They’re gone,” he told KT. “I took a bank loan of Dh176,000 to invest. I’m still paying the instalments. My life is ruined.”

Another Abu Dhabi resident, Mohammad Bilal Saeed, who lost $50,000 to Sigma-One Capital, has also filed a police complaint.

“They put someone else’s name on the license. You don’t know who you’re dealing with until it’s too late.”

Nigel Sillitoe, CEO of Insight Discovery, a Dubai-based market intelligence firm, says it is “deeply concerning” that so many unregulated online trading and forex investment companies continue to operate in the UAE.

“Investors have plenty of legitimate options,  so why risk your savings with an illegal, unregulated entity?”

“Unregulated platforms often promise high returns with minimal risk. These are red flags. Sadly, many individuals only realise too late after losing money with no legal protection.”

Mazhar Farooqui

Mazhar Farooqui, also known as Maz, is a multiple award-winning investigative journalist and Senior …More