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, which has been active since at least 2021.
• One Australian victim lost more than $500,000 after being lured in by a near-perfect clone of the ABC News website.
• A Melbourne-based company called Trigo XO received scam payments disguised as sales of online courses, and its accountant filed a complaint with Australia's anti-money-laundering regulator AUSTRAC before cutting ties.
• The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) estimates the network has defrauded victims of hundreds of millions of dollars in total.
• Internal documents from inside the network 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 was not sympathy. It was a request for another five thousand dollars.

He had already put roughly $125,000 into something called The FBTC, an investment platform he had found through someone claiming to be a financial professional based in Switzerland. Every time he tried to withdraw his money, a new excuse appeared. Frozen accounts. Liquidity problems. Fees that had to be paid first.

The money was gone. The broker was gone. And Rodger had to scrape together funds for his Christmas shopping that year.

How does a scam like this actually work?

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

The broker is warm, patient and convincing. A second Australian victim, called Toby here to protect his identity, 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 that his broker said was set up in his own name, though Toby had no control over it. He then watched profits pile up 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. The brokers suggested he take out loans against his home and business to clear the invented debt.

The researchers at the OCCRP, a network of investigative journalists that tracks organised crime, call the group behind this the Sapphire Network. It is based in central Tel Aviv and linked to call centres in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Cyprus, North Macedonia and Israel itself. Internal documents from the network were leaked to Swedish broadcaster SVT and shared with international partners.

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 the suburb of Toorak. The company runs three websites advertising online courses, but when reporters tried to buy one, the checkout systems returned nothing but errors and no one 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 had already filed a complaint with AUSTRAC, Australia's financial intelligence agency that watches for money laundering, because he had "no way to check" whether the invoices flowing through the company were real. The accountant, 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 offshoot of GoBe Marketing was found by a South African court in 2021 to have processed payments for an investment scam while misrepresenting them as immigration fees. Goldberg has denied personal involvement in any fraudulent payments.

What should anyone who invested through an online platform do?

If you put money into an investment platform you found through a social media article or a news site you are not certain was real, treat it as potentially fraudulent. Do not pay further fees to unlock a withdrawal, that is the clearest warning sign the money is already gone.

Contact your bank immediately to report the transfers and ask about recall options. Report the scam to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's Scamwatch service, and to your country's equivalent consumer protection body if you are outside Australia. Keep every message, screenshot and receipt, because investigators can trace money through small payments even when the big sums disappear.

Common questions

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

Check the web address carefully before trusting any article: a real news site will have 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 is the content of a scam, not a news story.

Can I get my money back if I have already sent it?

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