ArgonautFX is currently advertising returns of 7% per month via Instagram Stories.
On their website they claim to offer an “Income Generator” with an average return of 7.3% per month and a “VIP Fund” with an average return of 18.4% per month (and a higher minimum investment).
Its literature claims Argonaut targets returns of 60% per year and has “proven capital risk exposure of less than 10%”.
A “Capital Guarantee” Fund is also listed as “Coming Soon”.
Investors’ money is supposedly used to trade forex and commodities using “blended New York hedge funds strategies and algorithms”.
Who are Argonaut FX?
No details of who is behind the business are provided on Argonaut’s website.
In its footer Argonaut claims to be a trading name of DBPP Limited, which is an FCA-regulated insurance broker trading as Foryounity. Despite this, in a disclaimer Argonaut FX claims to be “not licensed or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority” which makes no sense, as DBPP Limited is FCA-regulated. That and other inconsistencies initially made me suspect a “clone scam”, i.e. that ArgonautFX had copy and pasted Foryounity’s website and their company name.
That changed when I looked at Argonaut’s Facebook page. Argonaut has a Facebook group “Argonaut FX Mastermind”. The admins of this group are Argonaut FX’s corporate profile and Rakesh Kumar Morar. The moderators are Raj Aziz and Vincent Procopiou.
Companies House shows the directors of DBPP are Rakesh Morar and Barnaby Procopiou, with Barnaby Procopiou also being the company’s owner. I wasn’t able to confirm whether Barnaby and Vincent Procopiou are relatives or the same person.
The Facebook profiles are too old to be fake, so, despite the inconsistencies, it appears that ArgonautFX checks out as a genuine offshoot of DBPP / Foryounity.
I contacted Foryounity last week and they haven’t responded. I also contacted their network Tuto Money to ask what authorisation their appointed representative had to run a collective fund, but again, no response as yet.
Note that none of this digging would have been necessary if, as is standard, ArgonautFX had disclosed details of its directors and ownership on its website.
Investors should think carefully before investing with a company which is not upfront about the identity of the people behind it.
How safe is the investment?
ArgonautFX states that they are running a collective forex trading investment.
The MAM (Multi Account Manager) allows the funds to be pooled, while remaining in your client account. Why is this beneficial? The funds can be traded as one whole pool, whichallows larger trades, increasing profit/loss, therefore allowing you to achieve targets you would not be able to see with only £500+. Greater diversification brings about lowered riskmanagement through exposure.
Running a collective investment requires authorisation from the FCA. Whie ArgonautFX / DBPP is FCA-registered (despite its claim to the contrary), neither it nor its network, Tuto Money, has authorisation to manage investments. ArgonautFX is therefore breaking the law.
If ArgonautFX actually had a magic way to consistently make 7-18% a month (that’s 125% – 629% per year), they would keep it to themselves, and would have no need to break the law or dilute their own returns by soliciting investment over Instagram.
The reason why ArgonautFX hasn’t applied for permission from the FCA to manage its collective fund and promote it to the public is that in doing so they would have to reveal that their magic algorithms from New York that produce 60% – 629%+ yearly returns don’t exist.
As ArgonautFX has no magic formula producing 60%+ yearly returns, any returns to investors will either be illusory (“numbers on a screen”) or, if real money is paid into an investor’s account, this will be funded by the investors’ own money or that of others, which would make ArgonautFX a Ponzi scheme.
Its claim that the investment has “proven capital risk exposure of less than 10%” is also nonsense. Regardless of what strategies Argonaut claims to use, handing your money to the control of an obscure small company has an inherent risk of losing 100% of your money.
Bogus past performance
Like many Ponzi schemes using forex trading or other forms of gambling as their story, ArgonautFX’s literature is big on screenshots supposedly showing their trading accounts, with lots of pretty graphs and big numbers showing super-duper returns.
Screenshots of trading accounts are not a substitute for FCA registration and audited accounts.
In the absence of FCA registration and audited accounts, Argonaut’s graphs are equivalent to claiming you can generate 60% per year by gambling on roulette and “proving” your outlandish claims by showing the investor a video of some random wins at a roulette table.
Even if they represent genuine performance for somebody’s money over some timeframe, performance graphs are not proof that Argonaut is in fact generating external revenue from forex trading and using it to fund returns of 125 – 629% per year to investors.
If Argonaut’s screenshots had anything to do with their returns, they would have no problem opening their books and registering their collective fund with the FCA, but they haven’t. As Argonaut operates illegally, any information from them is nonsense until proven otherwise.
Should I invest with ArgonautFX?
This blog does not give financial advice. The following are statements of publicly available facts or widely accepted investment principles, not a personalised recommendation. Investors should consult a regulated independent financial adviser if they are in any doubt.
Any investment offering a ROI of 125%+ per year is in reality a virtually guaranteed loser for all but those running it. The mathematics of Ponzi schemes guarantees that the vast majority, if not all, of investors will lose their money.
Do not invest unless you are prepared for total losses.
FCA wake up people and watch out for us – what are you waiting for – another global UK disaster!!!!