Harry Lazarides of IronFx and Banc de Binary

A summary of what happened?

Harry Lazarides is associated with controversial financial firms such as IronFx and Banc de Binary, and has been accused of attempting to censor the internet to hide negative information about his business dealings. Lazarides has reportedly used fraudulent tactics, including fake DMCA takedown notices, to remove critical content from search engines, aiming to manipulate his online reputation.

Here are three major concerns and accusations against Harry Lazarides:

1. Fraudulent DMCA Takedown Notices: Lazarides has been accused of filing false DMCA claims to remove unfavorable content that exposed his past business misconduct. These takedown requests were reportedly part of a broader effort to suppress negative reviews and articles connected to allegations of fraud at IronFx and Banc de Binary​.
2. Perjury and Cyber Crime: While submitting fake DMCA notices, Lazarides allegedly committed perjury by falsely certifying under penalty of perjury that the content infringed on copyrights he did not own. This is considered a criminal offense and constitutes cybercrime.
3. Association with Fraudulent Business Practices: Both IronFx and Banc de Binary, where Lazarides has been involved, have been accused of fraudulent practices, including misleading investors and engaging in manipulative trading practices. The efforts to censor this information raise further concerns about the integrity of these firms and Lazarides’ role in their operations.

These actions have drawn significant public and legal scrutiny, with many regarding Lazarides’ attempts to hide his past as a case of reputation management gone wrong.

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 Harry Lazarides of IronFx and Banc de Binary trying to hide?

Harry Lazarides of IronFx and Banc de Binary‘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 Harry Lazarides of IronFx and Banc de Binary in legal accountability. Let’s examine the information Harry Lazarides of IronFx and Banc de Binary may be trying to remove from the internet –

Here are ten adverse news items, allegations, lawsuits, sanctions, complaints, and negative reviews associated with Harry Lazarides:

1. Fraudulent DMCA Takedown Notices: Lazarides has been accused of filing fraudulent DMCA takedown requests to remove negative content related to his businesses, IronFx and Banc de Binary. These efforts were reportedly part of a scheme to manipulate search results and suppress critical information​.
2. Perjury in Legal Filings: In submitting false DMCA notices, Lazarides is accused of committing perjury by making false statements under penalty of perjury. This action constitutes a serious offense, raising potential legal consequences.
3. Manipulation of Trading Platforms: IronFx and Banc de Binary, where Lazarides played a significant role, have faced allegations of manipulating trading platforms. Users complained of rigged trading conditions to ensure client losses while benefiting the firm.
4. Failure to Honor Withdrawal Requests: IronFx and Banc de Binary clients have filed numerous complaints about difficulties withdrawing their funds, with some alleging that their requests were ignored or rejected without explanation.
5. Fraudulent Business Practices: Both firms are accused of engaging in deceptive business practices, including misleading clients about trading risks, inflating promised returns, and promoting fake trading opportunities.
6. Reputation Management through Fake Websites: Lazarides has reportedly employed reputation management companies that created fake websites and backdated articles to falsely claim copyright ownership and submit DMCA notices. This practice was aimed at censoring critical content.
7. Regulatory Scrutiny: Banc de Binary faced regulatory sanctions in several countries, including a $11 million fine from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for misleading U.S. customers and failing to register with proper authorities.
8. Connection to Organized Crime: Some reports have linked Lazarides’ actions to more sinister activities, including associations with individuals involved in organized crime. This connection includes allegations of corruption and money laundering through his companies.
9. Misleading Promotions and Bonuses: IronFx and Banc de Binary were accused of misleading clients with promises of bonuses and promotions that were impossible to redeem. Clients would often lose their deposits without being able to claim the bonuses they were promised.
10. Public Backlash and Negative Reviews: Lazarides and his companies have faced a significant public backlash, with negative reviews flooding forums and watchdog sites. Customers have shared complaints about unethical practices, poor customer service, and fraudulent behavior.

These points highlight the numerous controversies surrounding Harry Lazarides, particularly his involvement in fraudulent business practices and attempts to hide them through internet censorship.

How do we counteract this malpractice?

Once we ascertain the involvement of Harry Lazarides of IronFx and Banc de Binary (or actors working on behalf of Harry Lazarides of IronFx and Banc de Binary), we will inform Harry Lazarides of IronFx and Banc de Binary of our findings via Electronic Mail.

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

Potential Consequences for Harry Lazarides of IronFx and Banc de Binary

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 Harry Lazarides of IronFx and Banc de Binary Committing a Cyber Crime?

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

What else is Harry Lazarides of IronFx and Banc de Binarys hiding?

We encourage you to ‘Dork‘ Google by searching for keyword combinations such as [Harry Lazarides of IronFx and Banc de Binary] + {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 Harry Lazarides of IronFx and Banc de Binary 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.