<story><title>DraftKings: a $21B SPAC betting it can hide its black market operations</title><url>https://hindenburgresearch.com/draftkings/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ordinaryradical</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s interesting to me that people like this can continue to succeed in modern democracies. There seems to be no consequences for massive financial crimes anymore, and the more brazen you are the more you are rewarded.&lt;p&gt;If I broke into the homes of millions of people to fleece them of their life savings I&amp;#x27;d never be seeing the outside of a prison but these guys do it via a confidence scam and the internet and never see the inside of a prison. Then they become CEO of another company and start all over agin.&lt;p&gt;I stop believing in democracy when I read stories like these.</text></item><item><author>Animats</author><text>Is the real purpose of this deal money-laundering by organized crime? DraftKings was supposedly losing money, while SBTech makes money illegally.&lt;p&gt;The BTi&amp;#x2F;CoreTech CEO was formerly the CEO (and previously CTO) of SpotOption, the binary option scam run out of Ramat Gan, Israel.[1] That was a big operation. Out front were the fake &amp;quot;binary option brokers&amp;quot;, in reality bucket shops, such as Banc de Binary. SpotOption provided the back-end services, while the front companies ran call centers to recruit more suckers. Some of the front companies appeared to be operated directly by SpotOption, although that was never entirely clear.&lt;p&gt;Until 2017, it was legal for Israeli companies to scam non-Israelis in this way.[2] When the binary option business was made illegal in Israel, the companies were given three months to move to another country. &amp;quot;Officials say that numerous Israeli-owned binary options firms have already begun moving to countries where the activity has not yet been banned.&amp;quot; SpotOption moved to Bulgaria.&lt;p&gt;The scam goes on, under new names.[3] &amp;quot;Since then, some scammers have shifted to schemes involving forex trading, CFD or cryptocurrency speculation.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;So that&amp;#x27;s the back story here.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.timesofisrael.com&amp;#x2F;sec-charges-israels-main-binary-options-firm-and-its-2-chiefs-with-vast-fraud&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.timesofisrael.com&amp;#x2F;sec-charges-israels-main-binar...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.haaretz.com&amp;#x2F;israel-news&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;israel-bans-binary-options-industry-that-defrauded-millions-1.5460002&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.haaretz.com&amp;#x2F;israel-news&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;israel-bans-bin...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.timesofisrael.com&amp;#x2F;german-police-raid-call-centers-allegedly-running-israel-linked-investment-scams&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.timesofisrael.com&amp;#x2F;german-police-raid-call-center...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>adolph</author><text>&lt;i&gt;it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;richardlangworth.com&amp;#x2F;worst-form-of-government&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;richardlangworth.com&amp;#x2F;worst-form-of-government&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>DraftKings: a $21B SPAC betting it can hide its black market operations</title><url>https://hindenburgresearch.com/draftkings/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ordinaryradical</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s interesting to me that people like this can continue to succeed in modern democracies. There seems to be no consequences for massive financial crimes anymore, and the more brazen you are the more you are rewarded.&lt;p&gt;If I broke into the homes of millions of people to fleece them of their life savings I&amp;#x27;d never be seeing the outside of a prison but these guys do it via a confidence scam and the internet and never see the inside of a prison. Then they become CEO of another company and start all over agin.&lt;p&gt;I stop believing in democracy when I read stories like these.</text></item><item><author>Animats</author><text>Is the real purpose of this deal money-laundering by organized crime? DraftKings was supposedly losing money, while SBTech makes money illegally.&lt;p&gt;The BTi&amp;#x2F;CoreTech CEO was formerly the CEO (and previously CTO) of SpotOption, the binary option scam run out of Ramat Gan, Israel.[1] That was a big operation. Out front were the fake &amp;quot;binary option brokers&amp;quot;, in reality bucket shops, such as Banc de Binary. SpotOption provided the back-end services, while the front companies ran call centers to recruit more suckers. Some of the front companies appeared to be operated directly by SpotOption, although that was never entirely clear.&lt;p&gt;Until 2017, it was legal for Israeli companies to scam non-Israelis in this way.[2] When the binary option business was made illegal in Israel, the companies were given three months to move to another country. &amp;quot;Officials say that numerous Israeli-owned binary options firms have already begun moving to countries where the activity has not yet been banned.&amp;quot; SpotOption moved to Bulgaria.&lt;p&gt;The scam goes on, under new names.[3] &amp;quot;Since then, some scammers have shifted to schemes involving forex trading, CFD or cryptocurrency speculation.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;So that&amp;#x27;s the back story here.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.timesofisrael.com&amp;#x2F;sec-charges-israels-main-binary-options-firm-and-its-2-chiefs-with-vast-fraud&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.timesofisrael.com&amp;#x2F;sec-charges-israels-main-binar...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.haaretz.com&amp;#x2F;israel-news&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;israel-bans-binary-options-industry-that-defrauded-millions-1.5460002&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.haaretz.com&amp;#x2F;israel-news&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;israel-bans-bin...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.timesofisrael.com&amp;#x2F;german-police-raid-call-centers-allegedly-running-israel-linked-investment-scams&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.timesofisrael.com&amp;#x2F;german-police-raid-call-center...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lainga</author><text>The nuance is slightly different - it&amp;#x27;s like the CEO&amp;#x27;s breaking into the homes of millions of &lt;i&gt;Americans&lt;/i&gt;. The fellow participants in his democracy (in Israel) were not affected; there are two separate jurisdictions.</text></comment>