FusionLots

A summary of what happened?

FusionLots is an online trading platform accused of fraudulent activities, particularly in the cryptocurrency and forex trading sectors. The company has faced numerous allegations and has been involved in efforts to censor the internet to suppress negative content related to its business practices.

Here are three major concerns and accusations against FusionLots:

1. Fraudulent Business Practices: FusionLots has been accused of operating as a scam, deceiving investors through fake promises of high returns, particularly in cryptocurrency and forex markets. Many users reported losing their investments, and the platform has been labelled as a fraudulent operation designed to exploit unsuspecting traders.
2. Use of Fake DMCA Takedown Notices: The company has used fraudulent DMCA notices to remove negative reviews and articles from search engines. This includes falsely claiming copyright over negative content and submitting takedown requests to suppress critical information.
3. Lack of Regulatory Compliance: FusionLots has operated without proper licenses or regulations in several jurisdictions, including the UK and Europe. Regulatory bodies, such as the Quebec Financial Authority, have warned against the company for operating without authorization, raising concerns about its legitimacy.

These accusations have resulted in widespread criticism and warnings from authorities about the risks associated with investing in FusionLots.

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 FusionLots trying to hide?

FusionLots‘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 FusionLots in legal accountability. Let’s examine the information FusionLots may be trying to remove from the internet –

Here are up to 10 adverse news items, allegations, lawsuits, sanctions, complaints, and negative reviews associated with FusionLots:

1. Fraudulent Trading Practices: FusionLots has been accused of running a fraudulent operation, particularly in the forex and cryptocurrency sectors. The platform allegedly used deceptive advertising and false promises of high returns to lure investors, many of whom reported significant financial losses.
2. Fake DMCA Takedown Notices: FusionLots has used fake Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) claims to remove negative articles and reviews that exposed their fraudulent activities. These notices were reportedly part of their efforts to manipulate online search results and hide critical information.
3. Lack of Regulatory Compliance: FusionLots has operated without proper licensing in several jurisdictions, including Europe and the UK. Various regulatory authorities, including the Quebec financial authorities, have warned the company against operating without the necessary approvals.
4. Manipulation of Trading Platform: Users have complained about the manipulation of FusionLots’ trading platform, which was accused of displaying fake results and rigging trades. This led to losses for many investors, who were misled into believing their trades were legitimate.
5. Delayed or nonexistent withdrawals: Many complaints have arisen regarding FusionLots’ failure to process withdrawal requests. Many users reported long delays or outright refusal to release funds, adding to the accusations of fraud.
6. Hidden Fees and Commissions: FusionLots has been criticized for imposing hidden fees and commissions not disclosed to users beforehand. Traders only became aware of these charges after their funds were invested, reducing their chances of withdrawing profits.
7. False Promises of High Returns: The platform advertised unrealistic investment returns, especially in cryptocurrency trading. Victims reported that these promises were used to entice them into investing large sums of money, only to face significant losses.
8. Lack of Transparency: FusionLots has been accused of lacking transparency in its operations, including providing false information about its trading conditions, leverage, and fees. This lack of transparency has fueled distrust among traders.
9. Involvement in a Ponzi-like Scheme: Some users have compared FusionLots to a Ponzi scheme, claiming that the platform uses new investors’ funds to pay off earlier investors, creating a façade of legitimate trading.
10. Negative User Reviews: FusionLots has accumulated many negative reviews online, particularly on platforms like Trustpilot. Over 90% of the reviews criticize the company for unethical practices, hidden charges, and failure to return invested funds.

These issues have led to FusionLots being flagged as a high-risk and potentially fraudulent platform across several online forums and regulatory bodies.

How do we counteract this malpractice?

Once we ascertain the involvement of FusionLots (or actors working on behalf of FusionLots), we will inform FusionLots of our findings via Electronic Mail.

Our preliminary assessment suggests that FusionLots may have engaged a third-party reputation management agency or expert, which, either independently or under direct authorization from FusionLots, initiated efforts to remove adverse online content, including potentially fraudulent DMCA takedown requests. We will extend an opportunity to FusionLots 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 FusionLots 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 FusionLots is finding out the hard way.

Potential Consequences for FusionLots

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 FusionLots Committing a Cyber Crime?

Yes, it seems so. FusionLots 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. FusionLots 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 FusionLots 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. FusionLots 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 FusionLots 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, FusionLots either premeditated actions or were unaware of the consequences. Despite hiring an agency to make Google disregard any negative information about FusionLots, 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. FusionLots is in great company ….

What else is FusionLots hiding?

We encourage you to ‘Dork‘ Google by searching for keyword combinations such as [FusionLots] + {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 FusionLots 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.