The European Funds Recovery Initiative (EFRI) filed a criminal complaint against Payvision and its former management, Rudolf Booker, Gijs op de Weegh, Cheng Liem Li. According to EFRI, the Amsterdam-based Fintech and licensed payment processor Payvision has been knowingly and willingly facilitating cybercrime and scams. Thus, Payvision would be liable for the victims’ losses and has to refund them, EFRI principal Elfriede Sixt explains.
EFRI coordinated the lawsuits of scam victims that deposited their money with scams via Payvision. In these court cases, it is an undisputed fact that the ING subsidiary Payvision has been processing transactions for high-risk merchants such as porn (e.g. PornHub), gambling, or trading (binary options, Forex, CFD) for years.
However, EFRI has stated Payvision has also participated in frauds committed by international criminal organizations, thus violating the legal requirements imposed on the company as a regulated payment service provider (mainly money laundering) and the requirements set by credit card companies on their licensees. Payvision, founded and led by Booker, Gijp op de WEEGH, Cheng Liem Li, has intentionally, knowingly, and willfully provided services to other unscrupulous high-risk payment processors such as T1 Payments LLC and Allied Wallet.
EFRI wants that all accomplices and facilitators of financial crime must be held accountable. One of the former Payvision clients, the Israeli cybercrime mastermind Gal Barak, was sentenced to prison time and restitution payments in September 2020. Other members of Barak’s cybercrime organization have been sentenced to prison time and restitution payments in Germany.
EFRI wants to hold the licensed/regulated European payment service providers accountable. They have eagerly supported the fraudsters. Without them, fraud would not have been possible on this scale.