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The United Kingdom’s financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently published another warning against a fraudulent clone impersonating an authorized trading giant, Admiral Markets. According to the regulator, this is at least the fifth clone of the popular broker that has emerged in the past few years.
Another Admirals’ clone detected
The FCA’s original warning emerged on October 17, 2023, and since then, the regulator has published several updates, repeating the warning and adding new information as it became available. The most recent such update came only yesterday, January 4.
In the update, the FCA warned that unknown fraudsters are posing as Admiral Markets, using the legitimate firm’s details, including similar names, emails, and even phone numbers, in order to appear as legitimate as possible. As always, the idea is to have unsuspecting users deposit their money in order to have it invested, which scammers then claim as their own.
Scammers have also been using a series of false email addresses and websites, including admiral-fx.com and fxsadmiral.com, in order to offer retail investors access to forex and CFD trading, targeting both UK investors, as well as those from other parts of the world.
However, according to the FCA’s warning, these have nothing to do with admiralmarkets.com, which is the real, official website of Admirals.
The regulator explained that the scammers have been reaching out to people unexpectedly, and presenting the clones of Admiral Markets as the legitimate website. However, those who took the time to carefully examine the clone site may have noticed that there are certain differences from the original.
They do look identical at first glance, as scammers wish to mislead retail investors, so things like the logo, the London address, and the FCA license number (595450) are all identical as the real Admirals’ website. However, there are certain details that are different, and the FCA warned that some more details may change over time, looking more and more like the real Admirals to appear legitimate.
Regulators warn investors to stay cautious
While this was not the first clone of the well-known firm, it is also unlikely to be the last, which is why the FCA warns users to be careful when trying to access the trading platform. Historically, Admirals Markets was one of the most favored companies for scammers to clone and try to present as the real deal to would-be investors.
Reports of Admirals’ clones go back to 2017, when the FCA first started cautioning about fraudsters impersonating this specific broker. Later that same year, Admirals itself published a warning, and the alert was then repeated in 2018, and again in 2020.
Meanwhile, similar alerts about Admirals’ clones emerged from the regulators in Malaysia. While scammers do occasionally try to impersonate other brokers, as well, Admirals Markets seems to be the preferred option for many of them.
