Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance

A summary of what happened?

Farzin Fardin Fard, an Iranian national based in Dubai, is the founder of Unique Finance, a company accused of operating a large-scale Ponzi scheme across the Middle East, including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan. Under the guise of a legitimate investment firm, Unique Finance allegedly defrauded numerous investors by promising substantial returns through purported stock market investments.

Key Allegations Against Farzin Fardin Fard and Unique Finance:

1. Operation of a Pyramid Scheme:
   • Unique Finance is accused of functioning as a pyramid scheme, where returns to earlier investors were paid using the capital of newer investors, rather than through legitimate profits. This structure is unsustainable and often leads to significant financial losses for the majority of participants.
2. False Claims of Legitimacy:
   • The company purportedly misrepresented itself as a Swiss-registered entity with international licenses, including claims of being listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. Investigations revealed these assertions to be false, undermining the company’s credibility.
3. Unlicensed Financial Activities:
   • Unique Finance operated without the necessary financial licenses in the countries where it was active, violating financial regulations anrs to unregulated risks.
4. Misrepresentation of Services:
   • The company claimed to offer an automated trading system (ATS) and assured investors that their initial capital was insured. These claims were found to be deceptive, as no such systems or insurance protections were
5. Associations with Previous Fraudulent Schemes:
   • Reports suggest that Farzin Fardin Fard had prior involvement in other fraudulent schemes, such as UniFunds and QNet, indicating a pattern of deceptive fin
6. Exploitation of Media and Public Figures:
   • To enhance credibility, Fard allegedly engaged in high-profile activities, including purchasing expensive NFTs and collaborating with celebrities, to divert attention from his fraudulent operations

Legal Actions and Consequences:

• Arrests and Convictions:
  • Key figures associated with Unique Finance, including Iranian representative Mohsen Derakhshan, have been arrested and convicted. Derakhshan received a 20-ye and was ordered to return $60 million to victims.
• Ongoing Investigations:
  • Authorities in Iran and other affected countries continue to investigate the full extent of the fraud, aiming to recover assets and provide restitutio

Impact on Victims:

The fraudulent activities of Unique Finance have led to substantial financial losses for thousands of investors across multiple countries. Many victims were lured by promises of high returns and the company’s purported legitimacy, only to suffer significant financial and emotion

Farzin Fardin Fard, through Unique Finance, orchestrated a complex Ponzi scheme that exploited investors across the Middle East. By presenting false claims of legitimacy and leveraging deceptive marketing strategies, the scheme caused widespread financial harm. Ongoing legal efforts seek to hold those responsible accountable and to provide justice for the victims.

Analyzing the Fake Copyright Notice(s)

Our team collects and analyses fraudulent copyright takedown requests, legal complaints, and other efforts to remove critical information from the internet. Through our investigative reporting, we examine the prevalence and operation of an organized censorship industry, predominantly funded by criminal entities, oligarchs, and disreputable businesses or individuals. Our findings allow internet users to gain insight into these censorship schemes’ sources, methods, and underlying objectives.

What was Farzin Fardin - Unique Finance trying to hide?

Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance‘s attempts to hide unfavourable content through the misuse of copyright notices while allegedly engaging in perjury present serious legal concerns. These actions suggest a calculated attempt to manipulate legal systems to suppress free speech, a fundamental violation of copyright law principles and an abuse of legal processes. The use of such tactics not only undermines the integrity of copyright protection but also potentially constitutes perjury, further entangling Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance in legal accountability. Let’s examine the information Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance may be trying to remove from the internet –

Investigative Report: Farzin Fardin Fard and Unique Finance – Allegations, Legal Actions, and Investor Fallout

Farzin Fardin Fard, an Iranian businessman based in Dubai, is at the center of a sprawling financial fraud scandal tied to Unique Finance, a purported investment firm accused of orchestrating a large-scale Ponzi scheme across the Middle East and beyond. Promising high returns and financial security, Unique Finance lured thousands of investors into its web of deceit, leading to widespread financial losses. This in-depth report unravels the complex operations of Unique Finance, the allegations against its founder, and the broader implications of the scandal.

1. Overview of Unique Finance

A. Company Profile

• Unique Finance presented itself as a legitimate investment platform offering automated trading systems (ATS) and claiming to generate profits from stock market activities.
• The company purportedly operated as a Swiss-registered entity and claimed to be listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, further boosting its credibility among unsuspecting investors.

B. Target Audience

• Unique Finance primarily targeted investors in the Middle East, including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan, leveraging aggressive marketing strategies and promises of substantial returns.
• Victims ranged from middle-class individuals seeking secure investments to affluent investors looking for high-yield opportunities.

2. Allegations Against Farzin Fardin Fard and Unique Finance

A. Operation of a Ponzi Scheme

• Unique Finance is accused of operating a Ponzi scheme, where returns to earlier investors were paid using funds from newer investors, rather than through legitimate profits.
• The scheme collapsed when new investments could no longer cover payouts, leaving thousands of investors with significant financial losses.

B. False Claims of Legitimacy

• Misrepresentation of Registration:
  • Unique Finance claimed to be a Swiss-registered company with all necessary licenses for international operations. Investigations revealed no records of such registrations, indicating deliberate deception.
• Fabricated Stock Exchange Listing:
  • The company falsely asserted that it was listed on Nasdaq, a claim proven to be entirely fabricated.

C. Unlicensed Financial Activities

• Unique Finance operated without the required financial licenses in the jurisdictions where it was active, violating local financial regulations.
• By circumventing regulatory oversight, the company exposed investors to unmitigated risks.

D. Deceptive Marketing and Investor Misrepresentation

• Promises of High Returns:
  • Investors were promised annual returns of up to 25%, significantly higher than industry norms, a red flag for potential fraud.
• Insurance Claims:
  • Unique Finance falsely assured investors that their principal investments were insured, creating a false sense of security.
• Use of Automated Trading Systems (ATS):
  • The company claimed to use advanced ATS technology for stock trading, but no evidence of such systems has been found.

E. Associations with Prior Fraudulent Schemes

• Reports suggest that Farzin Fardin Fard had ties to other fraudulent operations, including UniFunds and QNet, both of which employed similar Ponzi-like structures.
• This pattern of behavior points to a history of financial deception and exploitation.

3. The Role of Farzin Fardin Fard

A. Leadership and Influence

• Farzin Fardin Fard was the driving force behind Unique Finance, serving as its founder and primary public face.
• His involvement extended to orchestrating marketing campaigns, managing financial operations, and maintaining relationships with key associates.

B. Exploitation of Media and Public Figures

• Fard engaged in high-profile activities, such as purchasing expensive NFTs and collaborating with celebrities, to bolster his reputation and divert attention from his fraudulent operations.
• Iranian pop star Mohsen Yeganeh was accused of collaborating with Fard, though Yeganeh later distanced himself from the controversy.

C. Evasion and Denials

• Despite mounting evidence, Fard has denied allegations of wrongdoing, attributing the collapse of Unique Finance to external factors rather than fraudulent practices.
• He has reportedly relocated to Dubai, complicating efforts by authorities to hold him accountable.

4. Legal Actions and Regulatory Responses

A. Arrests and Convictions

• Mohsen Derakhshan, a key representative of Unique Finance in Iran, was arrested and convicted for his role in the scheme. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to repay $60 million to victims.
• Authorities in Iran and other affected countries continue to pursue other individuals linked to the operation.

B. International Investigations

• Law enforcement agencies in multiple countries have launched investigations into Unique Finance’s activities, focusing on asset recovery and prosecution of those involved.
• Regulatory bodies have issued warnings about Unique Finance, cautioning potential investors against engaging with unlicensed operators.

C. Limited Recovery for Victims

• Due to the complex international nature of the scheme and the dissipation of funds, recovery efforts have faced significant challenges.
• Many victims remain uncompensated, deepening the financial and emotional impact of the fraud.

5. Victim Impact and Public Fallout

A. Financial Losses

• Thousands of investors suffered losses, ranging from a few thousand dollars to life savings, as a result of the collapse of Unique Finance.
• The scheme’s reach across multiple countries exacerbated the scale of the impact.

B. Emotional and Social Consequences

• Victims have reported feelings of betrayal and disillusionment, particularly those who trusted the company based on its false claims of legitimacy.
• In some cases, families faced severe financial hardship, including the loss of homes and businesses.

C. Broader Public Awareness

• The scandal has heightened awareness of the risks associated with unregulated investment schemes and the importance of conducting due diligence before investing.

6. Media Coverage and Public Perception

A. Media Exposure

• Investigative reports have extensively covered the fraudulent activities of Unique Finance, drawing attention to its deceptive practices and the individuals behind it.
• Media outlets have criticized regulatory bodies for failing to identify and stop the scheme before it caused widespread harm.

B. Damage to Reputation

• Farzin Fardin Fard’s reputation has been irreparably damaged by the allegations, with many labeling him a serial fraudster.
• The association of celebrities and public figures with Unique Finance has also drawn criticism, raising questions about their role in promoting the scheme.

7. Recommendations and Lessons Learned

A. For Regulators

1. Strengthen oversight of investment firms and enforce stricter licensing requirements.
2. Enhance international collaboration to identify and dismantle cross-border fraud operations.

B. For Investors

1. Verify the regulatory status of investment firms and their claims of legitimacy.
2. Exercise caution with companies promising high returns or using aggressive marketing tactics.
3. Avoid unlicensed operators and platforms operating in legal gray areas.

C. For Law Enforcement

1. Prioritize asset recovery to provide restitution to victims.
2. Pursue legal action against all individuals involved, regardless of their location or level of involvement.

8. Conclusion

Farzin Fardin Fard and Unique Finance represent one of the most significant Ponzi schemes to emerge in the Middle East in recent years. By exploiting trust and leveraging deceptive tactics, the operation inflicted severe financial and emotional harm on thousands of victims. Despite ongoing investigations and legal actions, the full scope of the fraud remains unclear, underscoring the need for heightened vigilance and accountability in financial markets.

Key Takeaways:

1. Systematic Deception: Unique Finance used false claims and aggressive marketing to build trust and attract investments.
2. Global Reach: The scheme’s cross-border operations highlight the challenges of regulating and policing international financial fraud.
3. Lasting Impact: Victims continue to bear the financial and emotional scars of the fraud, with limited prospects for restitution.

The case of Farzin Fardin Fard serves as a stark reminder of the importance of transparency, regulation, and due diligence in safeguarding investors from similar schemes in the future.

How do we counteract this malpractice?

Once we ascertain the involvement of Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance (or actors working on behalf of Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance), we will inform Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance of our findings via Electronic Mail.

Our preliminary assessment suggests that Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance may have engaged a third-party reputation management agency or expert, which, either independently or under direct authorization from Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance, initiated efforts to remove adverse online content, including potentially fraudulent DMCA takedown requests. We will extend an opportunity to Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance to provide details regarding their communications with the agency or expert, as well as the identification of the individual(s) responsible for executing these false DMCA notices.

Failure to respond in a timely manner will necessitate a reassessment of our initial assumptions. In such an event, we will be compelled to take appropriate legal action to rectify the unlawful conduct and take the following steps –

Since Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance made such efforts to hide something online, it seems fit to ensure that this article and sensitive information targeted online by these events get a lot more exposure and traffic than what it would have received originally

We hope this becomes an excellent case study for the Streisand effect…The key idea behind the Streisand effect is that efforts to restrict information can backfire, often causing the information to gain more attention than it would have otherwise. This effect is widespread in the digital age, where users quickly notice and spread censorship efforts on social media and other platforms. Trying to suppress something can unintentionally lead to it becoming more visible, which Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance is finding out the hard way.

Potential Consequences for Farzin Fardin - Unique Finance

Under Florida Statute 831.01, the crime of Forgery is committed when a person falsifies, alters, counterfeits, or forges a document that carries “legal efficacy” with the intent to injure or defraud another person or entity.

Forging a document is considered a white-collar crime. It involves altering, changing, or modifying a document to deceive another person. It can also include passing along copies of documents that are known to be false. In many states in the US, falsifying a document is a crime punishable as a felony.

Additionally, under most laws, “fraud on the court” is where “a party has sentiently set in motion some unconscionable scheme calculated to interfere with the judicial system’s ability impartially to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the trier of fact or unfairly hampering the presentation of the opposing party’s claim or defense.”  Cox v. Burke, 706 So. 2d 43, 46 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998) (quoting Aoude v. Mobil Oil Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir. 1989)).

Is Farzin Fardin - Unique Finance Committing a Cyber Crime?

Yes, it seems so. Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance used multiple approaches to remove unwanted material from review sites and Google’s search results. Thanks to protections allowing freedom of speech in the United States, there are very few legal ways to do this. Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance could not eliminate negative reviews or search results that linked to them without a valid claim of defamation, copyright infringement, or some other clear breach of the law.

Faced with these limitations, some companies like Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance have gone to extreme lengths to fraudulently claim copyright ownership over a negative review in the hopes of taking it down.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance is certainly keeping interesting company here….

The DMCA takedown process requires that copyright owners submit a takedown notice to an ISP identifying the allegedly infringing content and declaring, under penalty of perjury, that they have a good faith belief that the content is infringing. The ISP must then promptly remove or disable access to the content. The alleged infringer can then submit a counter-notice, and if the copyright owner does not take legal action within 10 to 14 days, the ISP can restore the content.

Since these platforms are predominantly based in the U.S., the complaints are typically made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires online service providers and platforms to react immediately to reports or violations. Big Tech companies rarely have systems in place to assess the merit of each report. Instead, all bad actors need to do is clone a story, backdate it, and then demand the real thing be taken down.

Reputation Agency's Modus Operandi

The fake DMCA notices we found always use the “back-dated article” technique. With this technique, the wrongful notice sender (or copier) creates a copy of a “true original” article and back-dates it, creating a “fake original” article (a copy of the true original) that, at first glance, appears to have been published before the true original.

Then, based on the claim that this backdated article is the “original,” the scammers send a DMCA to the relevant online service providers (e.g. Google), alleging that the ‘true’ original is the copied or “infringing” article and that the copied article is the “original,” requesting the takedown of the ‘true’ original article. After sending the DMCA request, the person who sent the wrong notice takes down the fake original URL, likely to make sure that the article doesn’t stay online in any way. If the takedown notice is successful, the disappearance from the internet of information is most likely to be legitimate speech.

As an integral part of this scheme, the ‘reputation management’ company hired by Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance creates a website that purports to be a ‘news’ site. This site is designed to look legitimate at a glance, but any degree of scrutiny reveals it as the charade it is.

The company copies the ‘negative’ content and posts it “on the fake ‘news’ site, attributing it to a separate author,” then gives it “a false publication date on the ‘news’ website that predated the original publication.

The reputation company then sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice claiming the original website infringed copyright. After a cursory examination of the fake news site, Google frequently accepts the notice and delists the content.

In committing numerous offences, Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance either premeditated actions or were unaware of the consequences. Despite hiring an agency to make Google disregard any negative information about Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance, ignorance does not excuse this wrongdoing.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. FSMSmart is certainly keeping interesting company here.

The Reputation Laundering

Rogue Reputation agencies use spurious copyright claims and fake legal notices to remove and obscure articles linking clients to allegations of tax avoidance, corruption, and drug trafficking. Most of these reputation agencies are based offshore, mainly in Russia, India, and Eastern Europe, and they do not worry about complying with US-based laws.

The content in all of the articles for which the fraudulent DMCA notices have been sent relates to allegations of criminal allegations, including corruption, child abuse, sexual harassment, human trafficking and financial fraud against businesses and individuals with ultra-high net worth.

In addition to the misuse of the DMCA takedown process, there is a notable absence of enforcement concerning perjury violations. The statutory requirement related to perjury is designed to deter copyright holders from submitting fraudulent or knowingly false takedown requests, as they may face legal consequences for making false declarations under penalty of perjury. However, to date, there have been no known instances of any individual being prosecuted for perjury in connection with the submission of false DMCA takedown notices.

This lack of enforcement has emboldened copyright holders to exploit the DMCA takedown process to suppress dissent, criticism, or other unfavorable content, without fear of legal repercussions.

Some of the people and businesses who have employed this tactic to remove legitimate content from Google illegally include a Spanish businessman-turned-cocaine-trafficker, Organised crime, an Israeli-Argentine banker accused of laundering money for Hugo Chávez’s regime, a French “responsible” mining company accused of tax evasion, child molesters and sexual predators. Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance is in great company ….

What else is Farzin Fardin - Unique Finance hiding?

We encourage you to ‘Dork‘ Google by searching for keyword combinations such as [Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance] + {Negative Keyword, such as Scam, Fraud, Complaints, Lawsuit, Sanction, etc} on Google. It’s likely if you scroll down to the bottom of this Google search results, you’ll stumble upon this Legal Takedown notice (pictured below)

To make such an investigation possible, we encourage more online service providers to come forward and share copies of content removal requests with industry experts and researchers. If you have any information on Farzin Fardin – Unique Finance that you want to share with experts and journalists, kindly email the author directly at [email protected].

All communications are strictly confidential and safeguarded under a comprehensive Whistleblower Policy, ensuring full protection and anonymity for individuals who provide information.