InsideOption / SecuredOptions — from a Singaporean victim's complaint to an arrest for fraud and extortion

Imagine a binary options broker that for years promised clients around the world easy earnings from predicting currency and stock prices, and instead systematically stripped them of their savings. That is exactly what the scheme run by the Israeli companies InsideOption and SecuredOptions turned out to be. Its collapse began not with a large-scale regulatory investigation, but with a single letter — a complaint from a woman in Singapore who had lost up to $500,000. The Tel Aviv police set about checking the tip-off and, within a few months, uncovered an entire fraud network with elements of outright extortion.

InsideOption and SecuredOptions operated as ordinary online binary options brokers — a product that promised the client a fixed payout if they correctly guessed the direction an asset's price would move within a limited time. Both brands belonged to an Israeli company and actively solicited clients abroad — mostly people who had never previously dealt with exchange trading and perceived the platform as a legitimate financial service with a professional interface and "personal managers."

The fraudulent mechanism only became apparent when a client tried to withdraw funds. According to the victims' accounts, the companies' representatives blocked withdrawals under various pretexts and demanded additional deposits — supposedly to "unlock" the account, or to pay commissions or taxes. This already went beyond an ordinary financial swindle and bore the hallmarks of outright extortion: the client was forced to pay again and again in order to gain access to funds they had already invested. This was precisely the situation faced by the woman from Singapore, who, through a lawyer, filed a formal complaint with the Tel Aviv police, reporting a loss of up to $500,000.

The complaint set off an investigation that ran covertly for several months. The Tel Aviv police tracked the companies' activity, gathered evidence and, in 2017, arrested the companies' owner, Elliran Saada, on suspicion of fraud, falsifying accounts, forging documents and extortion. During the arrest, a search was carried out at the company's office and computer equipment was seized. In the course of the investigation it emerged that the Singaporean client's complaint was not an isolated one: investigators obtained testimony from other victims in various countries as well.

No court verdict against Elliran Saada is recorded according to the available public sources — at the time of the arrest he was named as a suspect, not the subject of a final charge with a verdict. It is known that the InsideOption and SecuredOptions websites ceased operating; this coincided with the general regulatory crackdown on the binary options industry in Israel, which culminated in a complete ban on the product in the country.

Published 16 January 2024