An Australian company that presented itself as a seller of online courses was in fact used as a front to launder money for an international investment scam network originating in Tel Aviv, according to an investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The network, known as the “Sapphire Network,” is believed to have been active since 2021 and lured more than 4,000 Australians through fake news articles, including ones imitating ABC, and false promises of AI-based trading.
According to investigators from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, or OCCRP, the network extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from victims and operated call centers in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Cyprus, North Macedonia and Israel. Two Australian victims, identified in the ABC report as Rodger and Toby, described how they were directed to fake trading platforms by impostors posing as professional brokers and together lost nearly $625,000.
Rodger, who was hospitalized and awaiting surgery while trying to recover his money, was even forced to seek a loan to pay for medical equipment. Toby, who was directed to a fake website that precisely copied the design of the ABC website, was persuaded to transfer more than half a million dollars after being shown a trading dashboard that appeared to show his money steadily increasing, even though no real trades were ever carried out.
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The trail that led investigators further began with a relatively small payment of about $350, paid as a registration fee to the fake trading platform, a common tactic intended to lock the victim into the process at an early stage. The money was directed to a company called Trigo XO, registered in the Melbourne suburb of Toorak, which presents itself as a seller of business leadership courses.
ABC’s examination found that the company’s websites did not actually function. The phone number listed on the sites went unanswered, while payment processes repeatedly failed.
Another victim who paid the company received in return a 35-page PDF filled with generic leadership clichés. Trigo XO’s accountant told investigators that he had already filed a complaint with Australia’s anti-money laundering agency, AUSTRAC, after being unable to verify invoices processed through the company. An AUSTRAC spokesperson said the agency could not comment on individual investigations. Following ABC’s inquiry, the accountant, the company director and its sole shareholder all severed ties with the company.
South Africa warned about the scam as early as 2021
Trigo XO’s director referred investigators to what he described as the company’s real controlling figure, Israeli national Shefi Goldberg. In a phone call, Goldberg denied any connection to the scam and later said he had no ties to the company.
However, an examination of Goldberg’s broader business interests revealed additional links to the network. He serves as a co-managing director of GoBe Marketing, which operates call centers in Israel, Cyprus, South Africa, Spain and the Philippines and is mainly involved in selling immigration services by phone to the United States and Canada.
A South African branch of the company, MSG Marketing, was found in a South African court ruling to have been involved in processing payments for an investment scam as early as 2021 and to have operated without a financial license. Its bank flagged the payments as suspicious.
Two additional Australian victims, Susan and Anna, paid small amounts to trading platforms called Finterex Capital and Ambit Capital, both of which appear on the warning list of Australia’s MoneySmart regulator. ABC journalists located the exact details of their payments in internal spreadsheets leaked from the network, alongside the details of about 4,000 other Australian victims. Susan ultimately received her money back after disputing the charge with her bank.
In leaked video footage from inside the organization, a call-center employee can be seen entering payments into a spreadsheet while working with a payment-processing system called Smart Pay. Additional material directly links the system’s details to Goldberg, including a video in which a man named Ronen demonstrates how to create invoices for $250, exactly the amount charged to most victims during the initial registration process.
The payment-processing company, registered in Cyprus under the name Allegiant Holdings, is wholly owned by Goldberg according to corporate registration documents, contradicting his initial denial that he had companies in Cyprus.
Goldberg said in response that the company “is used to provide services” and that he is “registered only” as its owner and is not involved in its day-to-day management.