The Curious Case of First Union Capital

An investigation into First Union Capital reveals that its founder is not being truthful, if he even exists; that it appears not to be registered with the financial regulatory agencies in any country in which it claims to do business; that hundreds of thousands of traders have不是在过去四年中，在过去四年中使用了在线交易计划;并对其交易计划的几乎完美预测权力的主张肯定是虚假的。

My probe started on March 12, 2021, when I read a First Union Capitalpress releasetitled “Tackling Future Challenges with AI, Unicorn Trading System Creates the Absolute Trading Formula.”

The release, written in awkward English and filled with industry jargon haphazardly combined to create nonsensical sentences, promotes First Union Capital’s “Unicorn Algorithmic Trading System.” What especially piqued my interest was FUC’s claim that the artificial intelligence trading system been used by hundreds of thousands of I-Traders in the U.K. since 2017.

Asecond press release, on March 25, 2021, offers more of the same gibberish.

问题：我无法发现任何或者更广泛地使用独角兽算法交易系统或者是一家或多宽，首次联盟资本提供或为任何人提供任何服务的证据。

FUC exists, at least on paper. According to Companies House, the United Kingdom’s registrar of companies, FUC是一个U.K.-注册公司. (We’ll return to this formation information a bit later.)

The press releases led me to FUC’swebsite, which, too, is a rich word salad of peculiar phrases and is populated with utterly preposterous claims about the Unicorn Trading System’s success, most notably: “There are trading signals almost every minute, creating daily trading profits with a win rate of nearly 100% and a profit of 3–10 points per lot.”

Curiously, the website for this U.K. company is available in English and Chinese, and invites viewers to “talk to our representative today.” So I clicked on the link, completed the form, identified myself as an independent columnist with亚博赞助欧冠, and asked to arrange a call to learn more about their business. FUC did not reply to my request. I also emailed “Oliver Wright, Marketing Director,” the media contact identified in the first press release. He did not respond.

The website presents thebiographiesFUC的七个团队成员。所有BIOS都不骄傲含糊不出所有，并且明显可疑，提供善意的职业成功索赔，但缺乏有关以前雇主，证书和教育的特定个人详细信息。

Consider the biography of Mr. Dean Grayson, FUC’s founder and chief technology officer:

According to the company’s website, “Founder and Chief Technological Officer of First Union Capital, Dean has demonstrated expertise in the financial sector with over 16 years of Algorithmic Trading experience. Highly proficient in probability and statistics, Dean is specialized in the design of trading strategies, machine learning and artificial intelligence.”

我搜索了LinkedIn的关于Grayson的更多信息。2021年3月16日，我找不到任何个人资料，这似乎有点奇怪的FUC的业务历史和他在网站上的传记。但截至2021年3月28日，格雷森正在开启LinkedIn, where he lists only one professional position (FUC’s founder). His profile contains some fascinating historical details.

For example, he claims to have “led the team to organize and first to trade on the Central Asian Stock Exchange, Almaty Kazakhstan” and served as “Chairman of Board of URBI, S.A., Bilbao Spain.” The profile also indicates that Grayson received a “Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Economics and Data Science (1996–2000)” and a “Master of Science in Management Studies (2001–2003)” from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

His degrees seemed a bit fishy, so I checked with MIT. In response, I was told that “according to the MIT Registrar’s Office, we do not have a record of an individual with the name Dean Grayson having been an enrolled MIT student.”

The plot thickened when I struggled to find even a trace of Grayson on the internet. There is no mention of his successes in Kazakhstan or his chairmanship; in fact, I could dig up nothing that appeared relevant before the March 2021 press releases. I even did an image search using the picture of the smiling Grayson from the press release — but found no matches.

Internet searches for “First Union Capital” and “Unicorn Trading System” also reveal nothing since around the time of the first press release — and absolutely nothing of relevance for 2017–2020. Additionally, the results for 2021 were just mentions of that press release.

Asearch of the Wayback Machine显示从2017年到2021年，域名“First-union.com”只缓存七次。

All of this is simply bizarre for a company boastfully declaring that I-Traders have been using its Unicorn Algorithmic Trading System since 2017. It was thus not surprising when I discovered that FUC’s domain wasregistered only on April 27, 2020, with a firm in Iceland.

But FUCdoeshave a recently established presence onFacebook，Instagram和YouTube。该站点包含一些奇怪的功能。例如，截至3月下旬的Facebook页面有两个粉丝，包含越南语和英语的帖子，其Instagram帐户具有英语和韩语的帖子。

幸运的是,这些网站包括三个职业ally produced promotional videos in English. Their titles foretell their dodgy content (“What’s better than making money while you sleep?”).

FUC的YouTube页面具有相同的视频（两者在3月23日发布的两个亚慱体育app版本和第3月29日第三个）。他们是英文的，但描述视频的文字是越南语和英语（以及韩国和英语的其他地方）。亚慱体育appFUC的Instagram页面是一个相同的CNBC故事和FUC广告的Mélange，有韩语和英语的帖子。

One video在肉体中拥有我们的Grayson先生。在将通常的FUC Trave脱落之间关于“平均修订（SIC）”及其“每日赢率为99.9％”，他明显说明了FUC的商业目标：“成为世界领先的自动交易平台。”

All three videos make abundantly clear that the key to FUC’s pending world domination is its Unicorn Trading System.

The system is alternatively described as an “automated algorithmic trading program” and “a superior and unique intelligent trading model.” Its competitive advantage is that “it is multistrategy parallel approach with many daily trading signals and short holding times, which help traders to generate consistent profits.”

And in spite of its algorithmic complexity, the FUC system is completely user-friendly: “No financial expertise is required. You just need an effective and profitable Unicorn Trading System. You don’t need a lot of capital. With a small amount, you can start making profits. All you need is a smartphone to download the Unicorn app. Download Unicorn app now.”

The problem is, the Unicorn app does not seem to exist. The links on the FUC website to the Apple app and Google Play stores do not work, and a search of the stores produced no such app. However, there is a Facebook post of Grayson holding a phone with the app on-screen; perhaps, as founder, he got the beta version.

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There is no doubtFUC销售金融服务：交易“美国”的自动算法计划股票，欧洲股市和高产主要指数“可以通过赚取”利润丰厚“和”一贯的利润“并根据其中一个视频实现”金融自由“。亚慱体育app

Which raises the obvious question: How does FUC get away with all this? Surely it must be a regulated entity.

作为注册的U.K.公司，FUC似乎应该与U.K.的财务行为权限归档。但我搜索FCA的注册公司和个人数据库未能出现FUC或“Dean Grayson”。

Because of frequent claims that FUC would make its Unicorn Trading System available in Asia in 2021 (“Are you ready Asia!!!”) and because Australia, Hong Kong, China, Korea, and Japan were all listed on an FUC web page (without links or context), I checked with the securities regulators in these five countries but failed to find FUC in any of their registries.

Fortunately, Grayson, who “oversees the Legal, Compliance and Risk management teams,” clarifies FUC’s regulatory status in his video, calmly assuring viewers that FUC is “licensed and regulated by the National Futures Association, the NFA.” The NFA logo even appears on the screen next to Grayson. Yet, according to the NFA website, First Union Capital Ltd. “is not an NFA Member” and is a “non-member not subject to NFA oversight.” I also could not find Grayson or FUC on FINRA’sBrokerCheckor the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosurewebsite.

Not all of FUC’s success can be credited to its founder. I mentioned above that in addition to Grayson, the website lists six other team members.

Five seem to have no profile on LinkedIn or any internet history. Because of the apparently ephemeral nature of FUC’s enterprise, I have come to believe that these five are phantoms created to give FUC the necessary gravitas. The app might have been built by“the best programmers, mathematician (sic), stock trading analysts, and blockchain engineers from around the world,”but these individuals are laboring in obscurity.

However, the sixth team member, FUC CEO Mr. Amor ADJ, appears to be Grayson’s partner in this effort.

这让我们回到公司申请。沉迷于我一会儿。

“第一联合资本有限公司”合法进入存在ence only on October 15, 2020, when “First Union Credit Limited” filed documents with Companies House to formally change its name to “First Union Capital Ltd.” First Union Credit Limited was originally formed on September 23, 2017, but I could find no evidence that it offered the Unicorn Trading System or that it was involved in any related commercial activities. (FUC and First Union Credit also share the same address in the Companies House filings: 95, Suite 717 Wilton Road, London, United Kingdom, SW1V 1BZ.)

The filings further reveal that on April 30, 2020, First Union Credit’s original and sole director, Joaquim Magro De Almeida, resigned and Adjal Amor was appointed as his replacement. A May 5, 2020, filing indicates that Amor changed his name to “Mr. ADJ Amor” and then, in another May 5 filing, changed it yet again, to “Amor ADJ” — which, of course, is the nom de guerre of FUC’s “long-serving” CEO.

The corporate filings also state that ADJ is a French national born in May 1968, usually residing in France, whose occupation is “businessman.” Yet I’ve come to doubt the veracity of ADJ’s information since Companies House told me in an email, “We do not have the statutory power or capability to verify the accuracy of the information that corporate entities send to us. We accept all information that such entities deliver to us in good faith and place it in the public record.”

我发现了最近LinkedIn profile for ADJthat lists his only professional experience as CEO of FUC since September 2017. As I had come to expect, his profile is as vague as his FUC bio:

“With more than 15 years of managerial experience in the financial markets and having worked in Silicon Valley, Amor has managed financial markets trading, sales and portfolio management teams throughout the Asia region and in Europe.”

该个人资料还声称，adj赢得了剑桥大学（艺术学士（荣誉），经济学，2000-2003“和”哲学硕士 - Mphil，财经和经济学，2004-2005“）赢得了两度。

(One would expect a man with such an impressive CV to have more than two connections, although that is twice the number Grayson has.)

Predictably, a broader search revealed no digital footprint for “Amor ADJ” or his previous identities beyond the FUC corporate filings and website. An image search turned up nothing conclusive. I asked Cambridge to verify his degrees, but had not received a reply as of the date of publication.

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I can reach only one conclusion:Mr. Grayson and Mr. ADJ, whoever they are, planned this out carefully.

他们于2020年4月控制了休眠，四岁的U.K.-注册公司;在2020年10月改变其名称;并快速启动网站和社交媒体页面并创建三个销售视频。亚慱体育app他们于2021年3月宣布了他们的“新”公司在两份糟糕的新闻稿中（例如，拼错“Unicorn”和“Grayson”）和社交媒体。

And then Grayson and ADJ create their LinkedIn identities — onlyafterthe press releases are distributed.

这似乎很明显，这项努力的目的是财务收益 - 但细节可能会在不久的将来揭示。对于Grayson先生和Adj先生继续按下，在Facebook和Instagram上公开促进Unicorn交易系统，并且在似乎在被联系到本专栏后的防御机动中，编辑其一些网页。

By now I see that, like Lewis Carroll’s Alice, I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, when a press release caught my attention and, burning with curiosity, I popped down the FUC rabbit hole.

我提供这种文学参考不是累了的新闻伎俩（嗯，也许），但由于一个单一的线索，暗示Grayson和大概是adj知道FUC，Unicorn算法交易系统，“数十万人的I-Traders”，“令人惊叹的交易量300亿美元，”甚至是他们自己的FUC Personas都是一种幻想。

Near the end of his video, Grayson explains why FUC chose the name “unicorn” for its trading system: “Actually, it’s from the bookAlice in Wonderland:Into(sic)the Looking Glass. Alice finally meets the Unicorn after everyone has been talking about it. Alice asks, ‘Are you real?’ and the Unicorn replies, ‘If you believe in me, then I believe in you.’ The Unicorn knows.”

Put aside the fact that Grayson calls the book by the wrong title and misquotes thepassage. The key to this scene is that the Unicorn asks Alice to suspend her belief that unicorns do not exist and accept that this one is real.

Grayson seems to be winking and asking us, the unwitting, gullible investor, to put aside all of the troubling evidence and believe that FUC can make us rich.

也许以免透露太多，格雷森没有完全引用通道，因为它以独角兽询问爱丽丝，“这是一个讨价还价吗？”

Alice asserts her agreement: “Yes, if you like.”

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安吉洛Calvello博士是罗塞塔的创始人之一nalytics.