SumoPay

A summary of what happened?

SumoPay is a high-risk payment processor specializing in online gambling and sports betting transactions, primarily targeting markets in Japan and South Korea. The company has come under scrutiny due to several concerns and allegations:

1. Unverified Legal Entity:
   • SumoPay’s website lists “SumoPay Co Ltd” based in Kent, United Kingdom, as its operating entity. However, investigations have failed to locate this company in the UK Companies House registry, raising doubts about its legal existence.
     Fintelegram
2. Lack of Transparency:
   • The company does not provide links to social media accounts or detailed information about its personnel, which is uncommon in the high-risk payment sector. This absence of transparency makes it challenging to verify the company’s legitimacy and trustworthiness.
     Fintelegram
3. Involvement in Illegal Gambling:
   • SumoPay is reportedly focused on processing payments for online gambling and sports betting platforms. Some of these platforms are considered illegal in certain jurisdictions, implicating SumoPay in facilitating unauthorized gambling activities.
     Fintelegram
4. Transactional Money Laundering:
   • Whistleblowers have indicated that SumoPay manipulates consumer payments to Asian gaming platforms by presenting them as payments for consumer goods. This practice, known as transactional money laundering, is illegal and raises significant legal and ethical concerns.
     Fintelegram
5. Association with Fake Merchants:
   • The company is linked to entities such as AnimeX Co. Ltd, Famiike Co Ltd, and STA Group Co Ltd, which are suspected of being fake merchants used to launder illicit proceeds. This association further questions SumoPay’s business practices and compliance with financial regulations.
     Fintelegram

These concerns highlight potential legal and ethical issues surrounding SumoPay’s operations, particularly in relation to money laundering and the facilitation of illegal gambling activities.

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 SumoPay trying to hide?

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

Investigative Report: SumoPay – Allegations, Controversies, and High-Risk Operations

Introduction

SumoPay, a high-risk payment processor specializing in online transactions, has garnered significant attention due to allegations of unethical practices, regulatory violations, and its involvement with controversial industries. Operating primarily in Japan and South Korea, SumoPay processes payments for online gambling and sports betting platforms. However, a lack of transparency, accusations of transactional money laundering, and associations with potentially fraudulent entities have raised red flags. This report investigates the accusations against SumoPay, shedding light on its practices and their implications.

1. Overview of SumoPay’s Operations

1.1. Services Provided

• SumoPay specializes in processing payments for high-risk industries, primarily online gambling and sports betting.
• The company markets itself as a reliable payment gateway, offering seamless transactions for Asian gaming platforms.

1.2. Target Market

• SumoPay operates predominantly in Japan and South Korea, catering to online gambling platforms popular in these regions.
• These platforms are often considered illegal or unregulated in their jurisdictions, adding to the controversy surrounding SumoPay.

2. Allegations Against SumoPay

2.1. Unverified Legal Entity

• Company Registration Issues:
  • SumoPay lists “SumoPay Co Ltd” as its operating entity, with a registered address in Kent, United Kingdom.
  • Investigators could not locate any such entity in the UK Companies House registry, raising doubts about the company’s legal status.
• Implications:
  • The absence of proper registration undermines the company’s credibility and raises questions about its compliance with international financial regulations.

2.2. Lack of Transparency

• Limited Public Information:
  • SumoPay provides minimal details about its management, ownership, or operational structure.
  • It lacks social media presence, which is unusual for a company in the payment processing industry.
• Concerns Raised:
  • The lack of transparency creates significant challenges for stakeholders to verify the company’s legitimacy or assess its adherence to compliance standards.

2.3. Involvement in Illegal Gambling Transactions

• Primary Revenue Source:
  • SumoPay is accused of facilitating payments for online gambling platforms, many of which operate illegally in jurisdictions like Japan and South Korea.
• Legal Risks:
  • By processing payments for unlicensed gambling platforms, SumoPay risks being implicated in aiding and abetting illegal activities.

2.4. Transactional Money Laundering

• Alleged Laundering Practices:
  • Whistleblowers have claimed that SumoPay disguises gambling-related transactions as payments for consumer goods.
  • This process, known as transactional money laundering, is a direct violation of anti-money laundering (AML) laws.
• Mechanism:
  • Payments made to gambling platforms are allegedly routed through fake merchant accounts, obscuring their true purpose.
• Implications:
  • These practices could expose SumoPay to legal actions from financial regulators and law enforcement agencies.

2.5. Association with Suspected Fake Merchants

• Linked Entities:
  • SumoPay is reportedly associated with companies such as AnimeX Co. Ltd, Famiike Co Ltd, and STA Group Co Ltd, suspected of being shell companies.
  • These entities allegedly serve as fronts to launder funds derived from gambling activities.
• Concerns:
  • The use of fake merchants adds another layer of opacity to SumoPay’s operations, further implicating it in unethical and illegal activities.

3. Industry Context

3.1. High-Risk Payment Processing

• Payment processors serving the online gambling sector often face regulatory scrutiny due to the high-risk nature of the industry.
• Many jurisdictions impose strict AML and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, which SumoPay is accused of circumventing.

3.2. Regulatory Evasion

• By operating in regions with lax enforcement, such as certain offshore jurisdictions, companies like SumoPay can exploit regulatory loopholes to facilitate questionable transactions.

4. Whistleblower Testimonies and Investigative Findings

4.1. Whistleblower Allegations

• Whistleblowers have highlighted specific practices employed by SumoPay, including:
  • Misrepresenting the nature of transactions to evade detection.
  • Partnering with questionable entities to obscure money flows.

4.2. Investigative Reports

• Investigations by financial watchdogs and media outlets have corroborated some of these claims, emphasizing the lack of accountability in SumoPay’s operations.

5. Broader Implications

5.1. Legal and Financial Risks

• For SumoPay:
  • The company faces potential legal action from regulators if found guilty of facilitating money laundering or supporting illegal gambling.
  • Sanctions or blacklisting by financial institutions could disrupt its operations.
• For Clients:
  • Businesses using SumoPay’s services risk reputational damage and potential legal repercussions if their transactions are tied to illicit activities.

5.2. Impact on the Payment Processing Industry

• Cases like SumoPay highlight the vulnerabilities in the payment processing sector, particularly in high-risk industries.
• Increased scrutiny and tighter regulations are likely outcomes as authorities seek to prevent similar issues.

6. Calls for Regulatory Action

6.1. Enhanced Oversight

• Financial regulators in regions like the UK, Japan, and South Korea are urged to investigate SumoPay’s activities and its compliance with AML and KYC regulations.

6.2. Global Cooperation

• Cross-border cooperation between regulatory agencies is essential to address the challenges posed by unregulated payment processors.

Conclusion

SumoPay’s operations have raised significant concerns about transparency, compliance, and ethical practices in the high-risk payment processing sector. Allegations of facilitating illegal gambling, transactional money laundering, and associations with fake merchants highlight systemic issues that warrant immediate regulatory attention.

For SumoPay, the lack of transparency and verifiable registration information significantly undermines its credibility. The company’s alleged involvement in unethical practices not only jeopardizes its future but also poses risks to its clients and the broader financial ecosystem.

This case underscores the need for stringent oversight of payment processors, particularly those serving high-risk industries. As investigations continue, the outcomes will serve as a crucial precedent for addressing regulatory gaps and enforcing accountability in the rapidly evolving world of digital payments.

How do we counteract this malpractice?

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

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

Potential Consequences for SumoPay

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 SumoPay Committing a Cyber Crime?

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

What else is SumoPay hiding?

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