US indicts Israeli for alleged role in binary options fraud

TEL AVIV: The former CEO of Israel-based Yukom Communications was charged in an indictment for her alleged participation in a binary options scheme to defraud investors in the United States and across the world, the US Department of Justice said.

Lee Elbaz, 36, from Israel, was charged in the District of Maryland with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud, the Department said in a statement. In a detention hearing in September, Elbaz's lawyer Jonathan Lopez defended his client, arguing that Yukom is a legitimate business, the Times of Israel reported.

Lopez could not immediately be reached for comment outside normal business hours. Binary options involve placing a bet on whether the value of a financial asset - a currency, commodity or stock - will rise or fall in a fixed time, sometimes as short as a minute.

The indictment alleges that Yukom provided investor retention services for two websites, BinaryBook and BigOption, that were used to promote and market binary options and that those binary options were fraudulently sold and marketed.

The indictment also alleges that as CEO of Yukom, Elbaz, along with her co-conspirators and subordinates, misled investors by falsely claiming to represent the interests of investors but that, in fact, the owners of BinaryBook and BigOption profited when investors lost money. —