In-Depth Review: MFSA-Regulated Stablecoin Issuer StablR and its Payvision Legacy!

tamir
Fri, 19 Jul 2024 07:42:22 +0000
Crypto Compliance, Malta Financial Services Authority, Stablecoins, ticker, Corne van der Meijden, Deribit, Gal Barak, GPay, Robin Nijkamp, Rudolf Booker, Susanne Koning, Theta Capital, Uwe Lenhoff

StablR, a stablecoin issuer founded by Dutch tech entrepreneur Gijs Op de Weegh in April 2023, has garnered attention with its MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin EURR and recent seed financing success. However, a closer examination reveals significant concerns regarding the company’s leadership and background that could undermine investor confidence. Key individuals of the StablR scheme, including its founder and CEO, have a past with the notorious scam facilitator Payvision.

StablR, a stablecoin issuer founded by Dutch tech entrepreneur Gijs Op de Weegh in April 2023, has garnered attention with its MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin EURR and recent seed financing success. However, a closer examination reveals significant concerns regarding the company’s leadership and background that could undermine investor confidence. Critical individuals of the StablR scheme, including its founder and CEO, have a past with the notorious scam facilitator Payvision.

Background and Financing

StablR Limited, the company behind EURR, has been licensed as an e-money institution in Malta since July 2024, the company announced recently. The announcement of a €3.3 million seed financing round on July 18, 2024, featuring contributions from Deribit, Maven 11, Theta Capital, Folkvang, and Blocktech, initially presents a promising outlook. However, the absence of a disclosed valuation for this round raises the first question about transparency.

On Friday, July 19, 2024, EURR issued 3,200,500 with an alleged FIAT reserve of €3,470,744. This means that the reserves would even be slightly higher than the EURR issued. Whether this FIAT reserve consists exclusively of euros and where it is located is not explained further. We also found no further information in the whitepaper. The website merely states that 100% of the EURR tokens issued are backed by euro assets.

Leadership and Past Controversies

The most pressing issue lies with the company’s founder and CEO, Gijs Op de Weegh. His tenure as COO of Payvision, an Amsterdam-based high-risk payment processor, is fraught with controversy. Payvision, co-founded by Op de Weegh, gained notoriety for its involvement in the porn and gambling sectors and was implicated in facilitating scams and fraudulent online trading platforms.

Notably, between 2015 and 2019, Payvision under the leadership of CEO Rudolf Booker supported fraudulent schemes linked to cybercriminals Uwe Lenhoff and Gal Barak and laundered the stolen money from them. This led to significant investor losses. Legal proceedings related to these activities are ongoing.

Criminal investigations revealed that Op de Weegh personally signed contracts with operators of these fraudulent platforms. Furthermore, Payvision faced accusations of fraud and fund misappropriation from US merchants and partners, resulting in multiple lawsuits.

Money laundering via GPay Ltd and Payvison

Despite being acquired by ING in 2018 for €360 million, Payvision’s dubious practices forced ING to shut down the company in October 2021, citing ethical incompatibility. The Dutch Central Bank (DNB) found numerous instances of money laundering misconduct at Payvision and filed a complaint, although the Dutch public prosecutor’s office opted for minimal fines rather than pursuing rigorous legal action.

One of the companies in Gal Barak‘s cybercrime organization through which he laundered the money stolen from the victims was GPay Ltd. There were warnings against this company from financial regulators such as the FCA in May 2018. The contract with GPay was signed by the then Payvision COO Gijs op de Weegh in July 2018 despite the existing warnings. A homeless Bulgarian citizen was appointed managing director of GPay. Did op de Weegh not notice this during the KYC audit?

Read more about the Payvision Case here.

Read more about the Veltcyco Case here.

Implications for StableR

Apparently the MFSA in Malta was not bothered by the StablR founder’s past or simply did not do its due diligence properly. At this point, the question arises why a project that is controlled from Amsterdam and whose key persons reside in Amsterdam would obtain an EMI license for MiCA-relevant activities in Malta. Why not in the Netherlands? The answer to this question is obvious.

StablR CEO Gijs of de Weegh (LinkedIn)

The legacy of Payvision, with its money laundering issues, facilitation of online fraud, and legal disputes, casts a long shadow over StablR. Op de Weegh’s association with these activities raises severe doubts about his suitability to lead a systemically critical stablecoin issuer.

Additionally, StablR’s Chief Risk & Operations Officer, Corné van der Meijden (Linkedin), also has a Payvision background, having served as CFO until 2020. His involvement in Plutus B.V., linked to Op de Weegh, further complicates the trustworthiness of StableR’s leadership.

Transparency and Compliance Concerns

Under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, stablecoins, particularly fiat-backed stablecoins classified as e-money tokens (EMTs), are regarded as system-critical. MiCA established a significance regime for stablecoins as a response to concerns about the potential risks these assets pose to financial stability and monetary sovereignty. Thus, it is in the public interest to have full transparency of all stablecoin issuer, such as StablR.

Transparency is certainly not a key feature of StablR. It’s whitepaper is not accessible on its website, thus not publicly available. Attempts to request this document via email have gone unanswered, suggesting a lack of transparency and responsiveness. This is particularly troubling for an entity operating in the highly scrutinized stablecoin market.

We found an old white paper via Google in which Ralf Wandmacher is still listed as an executive. He also worked for some time as a director in the Dutch Plutus B.V., which was apparently implemented as a holding company via StablR. Wandmacher has since disappeared from the project and from Plutus.

Plutus B.V. is located at the same address in Amsterdam (Keizersgracht 452, 1016GD) as the other successor companies of Payvsion, which are closely linked to Payvision founder and former CEO Rudolf Booker (report here). Whether Booker is also involved in StablR can only be speculated.

In this whitepaper version 1.1, BDO Technology Advisory Ltd is listed as System Auditor and BDO Malta as Financial Auditor.

The cyberfinance rating agency PayRate42 has assigned StablR an Orange Compliance and Orange Risk rating, reflecting these significant concerns. Despite holding an e-money institution license in Malta, the past actions and associations of its leadership cast doubt on its compliance and operational integrity.

Key Data StablR

Trading name | StablR
Business activity | Stablecoin issuer
Domain | www.stablr.com
Social media | LinkedIn, X

Legal entity

StableR Ltd
STB Software Development B.V.
Plutus B.V.
GW Ventures B.V.

Jurisdictions | Malta, Netherlands
Authorization | MFSA-regulated EMI

Related individuals

Gijs op de Weegh (LinkedIn)
Corné van der Meijden (LinkedIn)
Robin Nijkamp (LinkedIn)
Susanne Koning (LinkedIn)
Ralf Wandmachr (LinkedIn)

PayRate42 ratings | Orange Compliance, Orange Risk (PR42 profile)

Go to the StablR profile on PayRate42.

Request for Information

FinTelegram invites anyone with additional information about StablR to share their insights via our whistleblowing system, Whistle42. Your contributions can help shed further light on the practices and integrity of this emerging stablecoin issuer.