Special Report – Milena’s Secrets
by Gianluigi D
The mystery woman behind the world’s biggest binary trading scam revealed
The world of binary trading has learned to know, and fear, Ilan Tzorya, the Israeli-born Bulgarian citizen behind the industry’s biggest scams. The man who has been in charge of hundreds of brands worldwide, scamming thousands of people and running what is perhaps the most devious fraud schemes in recent history has been wanted by authorities in several European countries and, living on the run, has been evading justice for years. One of the mysterious figures that has been in his closest circles for years, yet managed to stay out of the public’s eye is Milena Kabadzhova.
While Tzorya has maintained for years that she is no more than a low-level employee in his company, the real picture is very different. Finleaks has recently been contacted by a high ranking whistle-blower, associated with the criminal organization, a series of interviews conducted – in a hidden location – with the whistle-blower, along with documents provided by the source, that will be made public for the first time in this special report, show the depth and extent of the involvement of Kabadzhova in the Tzorya crime ring. Leading and coordinating international scamming operations, laundering millions of Euros stolen from clients and managing numerous of Tzorya’s fraudulent brands, the innocent-looking Kabadzhova may well be one of the most sophisticated and notorious scammers to come out of Bulgaria.
Running the day-to-day operations
Despite what was claimed by Tzorya in his various investigations and trials, Kabadzhova, in many cases, was the force behind many of the criminal activity committed. She organized payments, transferred funds, opened fraudulent companies and finding and hiring people for the various positions.
Most of the money she had control of came from Tzorya’s shady company BizDev Holding LTD, a shell company conveniently registered in the Seychelles, used to funnel funds to various criminal enterprise of the Tzorya crime ring.
In this email she is writing about her recruiting and details the charges she intends to take from the new clients:
As can be clearly seen, she had done the majority of the work – locating the clients, negotiating agreements with them and signing them, on her own. The profits, go to BizDev.
As the scam was expanding, the ring needed more brands. Tzorya, the mastermind behind the operation was giving directions, but the purchases and the allocation of funds for those criminal enterprises were done by Kabadzhova:
In another instance, she can be seen organizing and negotiating the purchase of a number of domains that were later used for creating of fraudulent brands by the Tzorya crime ring:
Kabadzhova was leading the daily operations, acquiring the various domains used for the different brands used by the Tzorya crime ring and their subordinates and, as will be demonstrated in the following section, located and hired the individuals that were written down as the fictitious owners of those sites.
Coordinating Scams
Many of the frauds committed by Tzorya’s crime ring have been carried out by his company BizDev Holdings LTD. A company registered in Seychelles, that has been scouting and hiring people to open fake brands – operating in various well known trading platforms, such as Panda, as admitted by Tzorya – using fraudulent codes to rob investors out of their money. This has allowed the scammers to distance themselves from the brands, as on paper they were managed by someone else while reaping all of the benefits.
At first, Tzorya has used his low-level employees for this scam. Many of the fake brands he has opened over the years, where written off as independent companies, which were “owned” by some of his call centers’ managers and customer support representatives at times, according to our whistle-blower, unbeknown to them. However, as his scheme grew bigger, he needed more people to be willing to have their names printed down as the ‘owners’ of the companies, when in fact they often lacked the basic technological knowledge required to understand the scam that was done in their names. The scam needed people that understood as little as possible, to make sure that they will not ask to many questions and intervene in Tzorya’s scam. This is where Kabadzhova stepped into the picture. She was instructed by Tzorya to make sure his name does not appear on any of the investments and ownerships, as can be seen, for example in this correspondence between the two (when Tzorya appears to be very upset because he thinks his name was put as the owner of one of his fraudulent companies):
Operating in various countries, she found the ideal targets and convincing them to have the companies, they knew nothing about, written under their names, offering them large sums of money (often tens of thousands of dollars) to be written down as the managers of companies that went on to scam people, stealing millions of dollars. The people she used were found in conferences – where according to some accounts she provided them with drugs and prostitutes in order to gain their trust and win their cooperation – as well as through her wide network of connections in various Eastern European countries. When the scams were discovered, the naïve individuals she exploited, who played no part in the operation of the fraudulent sites, were left to take the blame for crimes they often were unaware that took place under their names.
Money Laundering Czarina
Significant part of her work in the Tzorya crime ring revolved around laundering money from illegal activities. As the ring’s banking mastermind, she was in charge of laundering the organization’s dirty money, by opening investment funds through which the money could be used towards legal enterprises such as buying real estate or investing in other companies. Kabadzhova was the only one with the know-how of the financial world required to open and operate such funds. As can be seen in the following email, while criminal lord Tzorya comes up with the idea, he needs Kabadzhova’s work in order to carry them out:
She was fully aware of the illegality of her actions. As correspondences provided by the whistle-blower show, when Kabadzhova tried to mix respectable companies in her shady actions, she was warned, time and time again, that her actions were illegal and were defying of Anti Money Laundering (AML) regulations. An example of one, of many such explicit warnings can be seen in the following email. As is clearly stated by Isaac Armoni (a globally renowned AML expert who served at the timeas Head of Compliance and AML Department at MoneyNetInt), this was a recurring issue and he explained to her in many different instances that her requested actions were in complete violation of AML regulation:
Not only was she heading the money laundering operations to ‘clean up’ Tzorya’s illegal scam money, but she became such a notorious expert in the field that she became the go-to person for other criminals trying to launder their illegal money. She has used many ways to launder other’s illegal money, cutting a hefty ‘processing fee’ for her services along the way, but the method she most commonly used was getting dirty cash transferred to her and converting it to cryptocurrency. In the correspondence that can be seen below, she informs Ilan Tzorya that one of the fraudulent brands (888Option) they were operating together was detected by the Interpol. After informing him that the police are on their tales, a clear case of obstruction of justice, she moves on to the bigger things. She inform Tzorya that she was approached by a fellow criminal who recruited her services, hoping she can launder $2M (!) by transferring it to Bitcoin, a service Tzorya often provides, under the orchestration of Kabadzhova:
It is quite rare to see two serious crimes – obstruction of justice and money laundering – in two simple texts, but it seems that Tzorya and Kabadzhova got so used to a life of crime, that they became fearless (or careless). This may be the explanation to their next move – the Tradologic scam.
TRADOLOGIC Scam
One of the biggest scams conducted by the Tzorya ring was with one of his flagship companies – TRADOLOGIC. The company that he founded and ran as CEO for years, is a binary options trading platform under which he had operated hundreds of fraudulent white-label brands, that relied on questionable algorithms in order to ensure that the investors will lose their money, which went to the pockets of the Tzorya crime ring.
Once he left the company, the real scam began. The company which was sold with its algorithms and client base onwards, was in fact just an empty name, behind the scenes Tzorya’s closest associates in his crime ring – Delzar Khalaf (Tzorya’s confidant, appointed by him for the position of CFO of E&G), Shoham Cohen (Tzorya’s employees, who is, on paper at least, the CEO of NOVOX Capital) and, of course, Milena Kabadzhova – had another plan altogether. They have founded a new site – FINOTECH.IO, contacted all of the white-label owners and informed them that they are now obliged to send their monthly payments to the Tzorya organization to what they have referred to as ‘Ilan’s new site’. The companies cooperating with the scam, had no idea they were conned and being made part of this scam.
Kabadzhova was the first one to contact the white label owners. She called, she emailed and even created WhatsApp groups, with many of the white-label owners where she provided them with explanations as to where they have to transfer the funds from now on. In many of the conversations she had with them, like the one that can be found below, she listed the details she needed from them:
Many took their time to respond and Kabadzhova decided to turn the heat on. Turning on Marko, one of her accomplices from Serbia, she warns him that unless the papers are provided they will not be able to distribute any PSP. This clearly shows that she was the one in charge coordinating the operation, and that the PSP’s although written on other people’s names, were organized and distributed by Kabadzhova.
As can be seen here, in one of the documents provided by our sources, the white-label ‘owners’ were instructed, upon sale, to stop transferring the funds to Tradologic, and instead to send the money to the new accounts they were provided for ‘Ilan’s new company’. As can be seen in the following correspondence, between a white-label owner and Khalaf, Khalaf is serving, in this instance, as Tzorya’s person of contact, guiding the white-label owners through the changes:
White-label owners and operators, who used to work with Tradologic were conned into moving to ‘Ilan’s new site’ – FINOTECH.IO, they were told it was the continuation of their existing partnership, with crucial information being withheld from them and without any alternatives offered. Tradologic was left an empty shell, the white-label owners were passed on from side to side like a ragdoll and the only ones benefiting were the Tzorya crime ring.
Bulgaria’s Disgrace
The actions carried out by Milena Kabadzhova over the last years, as one of the leaders of what is known as the Tzorya Crime Ring, were as numerous as they were despicable. She has led wide spread frauds, orchestrating the theft of millions of Euros from innocent customers, providing false documents to portray the sites run by Tzorya as if they are owned by unassuming people who were paid for their services, Money laundering millions of Euros for the organization (despite being warned about the illegality of her actions by professionals from the industry time and time again), laundering millions of Euros for criminals and baldly orchestrating the huge and shameless Tradologic scam conning investors and subordinates alike.
All these scams done brazenly for years, without ever being held accountable for it. She is one of the main reason for the horrible reputation Bulgaria has been getting in the financial world in general and the Binary Option trading scene in particular. How long will she be allowed to walk the streets freely hurting individuals?
After weeks of in depth investigation, backed up by thousands of documents provided by the whistle-blower, we hope that these will be the final days of Milena Kabadzhova as a free woman. The information presented here, along with many other documents will be made available to the authorities upon request. We call for an immediate action against this dangerous criminal.
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