Fake forex firms with no UAE office are cold calling residents and draining savings. Victims lost between Dh36,500 and Dh180,000 each.
A friendly stranger calls with a trading tip, and months later a Dubai engineer has lost Dh180,000. Khaleej Times reports that firms such as DuttFX and EVM Prime Support are cold calling UAE residents, pushing them to invest, then cutting off access to their money. Neither firm has an office in the UAE. They work only through websites and phone calls.
Imran Zaman, a civil engineer in Dubai, first heard from DuttFX in September 2024. His "relationship manager" talked about market swings and chances in commodities. Imran invested, then invested more, until he had lost Dh180,000. Others report losses too: Shishir lost Dh80,000, Nalini Dh52,000 and Pravin Dh45,000. Mohammed Ayeshan lost Dh36,500 to EVM Prime Support. Most took bank loans or maxed out credit cards.
It follows a pattern. A warm caller suggests a small first deposit, often around $1,000, just to test the waters. The victim gets a login and a dashboard. Small early withdrawals are allowed, which builds trust. Then the pressure starts, with calls to add more money and move into gold, silver or crypto. When the account drops, the victim is told to deposit more to save it. In the end, victims are locked out.
When the reporters tried to check, the trail went cold. A woman at EVM Prime Support said the firm operates from Dubai, but the call was cut off when she was asked for an address and told a reporter would visit. A man linked to DuttFX gave conflicting answers about who he was, then stopped answering.
Anyone in the UAE who takes calls from unknown brokers offering forex, commodity or crypto trades is a target. Nalini, 59, said she ignored such calls for years before one caller wore her down. Readers who hang up on these calls are far less exposed to this pattern.
The alert box above lists the steps. The key idea is simple. Do not send money to a firm that found you by phone, and never borrow to trade.
Getting money back looks very hard. Without a registered company in the UAE, victims have no legal recourse, and complaints to Dubai Police have been filed. The story does not report any arrests or recoveries in these cases. It also notes that this is not new. Exential Forex, a Dh1 billion Ponzi scheme that unraveled in 2017, led to a sentence of over 500 years for its owner. Similar platforms keep appearing under different names.
If an unknown broker calls with a trading tip and promises easy withdrawals, hang up, and never borrow money to trade.
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