UK Watchdog Warns against a Boiler Room Scam Clone Targeting Asian Traders as LCG

The British financial markets regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), recently issued two new warnings to the public about more scammers found to be using the identity of a regulated firm to target potential Asian victims and a UK firm providing financial services without the FCA authorisation.

Clone FX websites, and especially Asian clones, are a growing menace for investors, judging by all the recent warnings. This time, the FCA has discovered a group of websites (www.lcga-fx.com, www.lcga.asia.lid-cn, https://indo.lcga-fx.com and www.fxlcg.com) operating in a number of Asian languages such as Chinese and Indonesian Malay, while pretending to be related to the UK Prime Broker LCG.

The fraudsters masqueraded the websites under the names: London Capital Group Asia, LCGA Fxplatform, LCG Asia and LCG Forex . The FCA said the scammers gave out the credentials of LCG and used boiler room methods, meaning high pressure sales tactics to pressure traders to deposit funds and lose their money. The domains are actually registered in Singapore and Malaysia, not London, so caution could have helped traders see through this scam even before the FCA warning.