The Marshall Islands atolls in the Pacific Ocean, as well as Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean, and the British Virgin Islands are the locations chosen by the companies which, in January-February of this year, were subject to the measures issued by Consob in its prevention effort of financial frauds carried out on the web.

In the first two months of 2019 Consob adopted 22 bans against 34 websites and 3 Facebook pages. The banned companies, in fact, abusively promoted through these websites - without the necessary authorization - offers of financial products or the provision of investment services. In most of these cases, the companies subject to Consob measures had their legal offices in tax havens with exotic locations, like the Pacific or the Caribbean.

The enforcement actions are meant to fight the financial frauds suffered by investors, some of whom received proposals of expected yearly earnings up to 120 per cent.

A synoptic table of the actions carried out in the considered period is enclosed below.

Consob invites investors to carry out a continuous, attentive and preemptive check of the authorized companies on its website www.consob.it. Investors are also encouraged to be fully aware if the offers are authorized by Consob, or not.

Just click on the "Be aware of fraud!" link on Consob website to make a simple and quick check of the information needed. Investors should be aware that unauthorized offers often hide a fraud.

Publications of January and February 2019