Beware of the Maltese Bristol Trading broker scam!

Spread financial intelligence

Bristol Trading Limited allegedly operates the Bristol Trading (www.bristoltradinglimited.com) broker scam. The company is registered in Malta, at Tower Gate Place, Tral-Qroqq Street, Msida. The company’s director and shareholder is Mercator (Malta) Limited, another Maltese company, which is controlled by British citizens via Guernsey-registered entities. Potential victims can lose their money via crypto deposits. Please let us know more about this Malta-based broker scam!

Key data

Trading name	Bristol Trading
Domain	https://bristoltradinglimited.com
Legal entities	Bristol Trading Limited Mercator (Malta) Limited Anson Holdings Limited IQ EQ Nominees (Gurensey) Limited
Related individuals	Fiona Jaybe Corbet, Mark Kenney Douglas, Stuart James Dowding, Jeremy Richard Michael Mahoney, Alasdair Ross McLaren, and David Edward Preston
Related wallets	14SSc9yMKQoe1Jbcw837n9Uy1Nodo97gkC (BTC) 0xc1b0b9ac4d5e9aa1bc37bfe95e3042612bb324ba (ETH)

The narrative

We have discovered in our review one BTC and one ETH wallet on which more than $600,000 was deposited by victims in total. There will probably be many more wallets. Boiler Room agents are also said to have instructed victims to make deposits via the crypto exchange Binance. We can therefore assume that the damage to Bristol Trading victims could amount to several million. Some victims are also said to have complained to the US U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The individuals related to the Bristol Trading broker scam

There are no employees at the registered office in Malta. The company never filed its audited financial statements or any annual return. Mercator (Malta) Limited was put in liquidation as soon as many victims contacted the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) about this scam. However, the Bristol Trading scam is still online, chasing victims.

The directors prior to the dissolution were Fiona Jaybe Corbet, Mark Kenney Douglas, Stuart James Dowding, Jeremy Richard Michael Mahoney, Alasdair Ross McLaren, and David Edward Preston. They reside in Guernsey. The shareholder of Mercator (Malta) Limited is Anson Holdings Limited and IQ EQ Nominees (Guernsey) Limited, registered in Guernsey.

Share information

If you have information about Bristol Trading, its operators, and facilitators, please share it with us through our whistleblower system, Whistle42.

Share information with FinTelegram

Introducing the Maltese boiler room operator ZP Services

Malta has been FATF Grey List for several months and has earned a dubious reputation as a money-laundering center in the EU. As a boiler room operator, Malta-regulated ZP Services Ltd apparently takes advantage of the relaxed financial market supervision to operate offshore brokers with its agents. The company's website lists A3 Trading, Financika, GI-Broker, UBanker, or 70 Trades as reference clients. These are brokers operated through offshore entities except GI Broker, which used to work with a Czech license.

February 7, 2021

R4I – Broker scam 27ProQuote closed down but Maltese ApcoPay still there

Many retail investors have lost money via the broker scam 27ProQuote. The attackers behind it are apparently in the process of closing the scam. Currently, the server of 27ProQuote is no longer accessible. We have reports of victims who have lost over €100,000 in some cases. The Maltese ApcoPay operated by Apco Systems Ltd registered in Malta processed the payments. We would like to know more about ApcoPay to expose the scammers and find the victims' funds.

December 7, 2021

Malta’s Compliance Issue – Ivan Grixti and the broker scam One Two Trade!

Ivan Grixti is a former Malta Labour Party MEP candidate and a lecturer at the Department of Accountancy at the University of Malta. He served as director of the binary options scam operator Up & Down Marketing Limited d/b/a One Two Trade (www.onetwotrade.com). Various reports show that the company scammed hundreds of victims, millions of euros. The company is registered in Malta. Its registered address shows an empty office at 2, Geraldu Farrugia Street, Zebbug, Malta.