QPay the European payment gateway has had £2M seized by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) after links to A $150 million bank fraud in the USA.Although the FCA is yet to disclose if QPay is directly involved the company was flagged after transactions cleared rapidly to ‘illegitimate’ businesses of certain companies.
Fraud Flagged
The funds in question were initially reported as an investment from Fintech International Q Software WLL. The fraud was flagged up after QPay applied for an FCA license where strict money laundering criteria must be adhered to. On successful application, QPay could then access international markets and operate in more jurisdictions.In terms of the $150M fraud, it’s not yet established whether QPay was complicit, but four US nationals Thomas Wells, Amy Ringler Rountree, and Mohamad Diab have been arrested by federal agents and charged with conspiracy to commit fraud via wire and conspiracy to commit banking fraud, tricking banks and credit card companies to process illegal payments. Online gambling businesses were targeted as they are often harder to determine where the funds came from. Debt collectors and prescription drug merchants were also targets of the fraud through the operation Allied Wallet.
Allied Wallet
Employees of Allied Wallet worked together to form fake companies online and create convincing websites to trick the US credit card companies and banks into allowing high-risk transactions straight into the hands of these fraudulent, fake companies’ accounts.Head of Allied Wallet Ahamed Khawaja was finally arrested in Lithuania in 2020 on an international arrest warrant. To date, Khawaja is still holed up in Lithuania, US officials are working hard to extradite him, but the reasons are still unclear.