Fake ABC News Pages and a Swiss 'Broker' Who Never Existed: Inside a $500,000 Investment Scam

Key points

• More than 4,000 Australians have been targeted by a fraud network researchers call the Sapphire Network, active since at least 2021.
• One Australian victim lost more than $500,000 after being lured by a near-perfect clone of the ABC News website.
• A Melbourne-based company called Trigo XO received scam payments dressed as online course sales; its accountant filed a complaint with AUSTRAC before cutting ties.
• The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) estimates the network has defrauded victims of hundreds of millions of dollars.
• Internal documents were leaked to Swedish broadcaster SVT and shared with international reporting partners, including ABC News Australia.

When Rodger, not his real name, texted his broker to say he was hooked up to a hospital drip and needed money for a wheelchair, the reply wasn't sympathy. It was a request for another five thousand dollars.

He'd already put roughly $125,000 into something called The FBTC, an investment platform he'd found through someone claiming to be a financial professional based in Switzerland. Every time he tried to withdraw, a new excuse appeared: frozen accounts, liquidity problems, fees that had to be paid first. The money was gone. So was the broker. That year, Rodger had to scrape together funds for his family's Christmas.

How does a scam like this actually work?

Victims are hooked early, usually through a fake news article on a site that copies a trusted outlet almost perfectly. Once they click through and hand over contact details, a "broker" calls. Warm, patient, convincing.

A second Australian victim, called Toby here, was drawn in by a page built to look exactly like the ABC News website. Over several months in early 2026 he moved more than $500,000 into a bank account his broker said was set up in his name, though he had no control over it. He watched profits accumulate on a slick trading dashboard, even discussing real-world events like the temporary closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane, as if the trades were genuine. None of it was real. There were no trades. The money was already gone the moment it left his account.

Once the fictional profits had built trust, the script flipped. Some trades "went wrong". Toby was told he now owed hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the brokers suggested he take out loans against his home and business to clear the invented debt.

The OCCRP, a network of investigative journalists that tracks organised crime, calls the group behind this the Sapphire Network. It's headquartered in central Tel Aviv and linked to call centres in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Cyprus, North Macedonia, and Israel itself. We first reported on this network on 22 August 2026, when Australia's corporate regulator had already removed nearly 20,000 scam websites in the preceding year. The scale has only grown.

How did investigators follow the money?

A small payment cracked the case open. Before the main scam begins, brokers typically ask victims for a modest upfront fee, usually around $350, to "open an account". These payments are dressed up as purchases of online courses or immigration services to look legitimate on paper.

Toby's opening payment of $365 went to a Melbourne company called Trigo XO, registered in Toorak. It runs three websites advertising online courses, but when reporters tried to buy one, the checkout systems returned only errors and nobody answered the phone. One previous victim who paid Trigo XO received, after the fact, a 35-page PDF of generic leadership advice that nobody had ordered.

Trigo XO's own accountant told the ABC he'd already filed a complaint with AUSTRAC, Australia's financial intelligence agency, because he had "no way to check" whether the invoices flowing through the company were real. The accountancy firm, the company's director, and its sole shareholder all cut ties with Trigo XO after being contacted by journalists.

The director said the real owner was based in Israel. That owner turned out to be Shefi Goldberg, co-director of GoBe Marketing, a telemarketing operation with call centres in Israel, Cyprus, South Africa, Spain, and the Philippines. A South African court found in 2021 that a local offshoot of GoBe Marketing had processed payments for an investment scam while misrepresenting them as immigration fees. Goldberg has denied personal involvement in any fraudulent payments; he later told Swedish media foundation Qurium he had no link to Trigo XO at all.

For readers who've been following the broader fraud-factory story, the mechanics here aren't surprising. Our 30 July report on Southeast Asia's industrialised cyber-fraud industry showed how the same layered company structure, fake storefronts, small onboarding fees, encrypted comms, turns almost any jurisdiction into a potential laundry room.

Should you worry if you've invested through an online platform?

If you put money into a platform you found through a social media article or a news site you can't verify, treat it as potentially fraudulent. Don't pay further fees to release a withdrawal; that's the clearest sign the money's already gone.

Contact your bank immediately to report the transfers and ask about recall options. Report to Australia's Scamwatch service, or your country's equivalent consumer protection body. Hold on to every message and screenshot, because investigators traced the Sapphire Network partly through a single $365 receipt.

Common questions

How do I spot a fake news website before I click through?

Check the web address carefully: a real news site has a short, well-known domain, while a clone often adds extra words or characters. If an article promises guaranteed investment returns or exclusive AI-powered trading tips, that's the content of a scam, not a news story.

Can I get my money back if I've already sent it?

Recovery is rare but not impossible if you act quickly. Banks can sometimes reverse recent transfers, and authorities across multiple countries are actively investigating the Sapphire Network, which raises the possibility that frozen funds could eventually be returned to victims.