A retired couple from Seville had invested their life savings with what they believed was a licensed investment firm. The company presented documents suggesting FCA and SEC registration. The account manager was professional, responsive, and available on weekends. Over 22 months, the couple transferred $275,000. When they requested a full withdrawal, the firm said they owed a $35,000 “repatriation tax” before funds could be released. They refused to pay. Their account was suspended the same day.
Alessandro Moretti, a senior fraud litigator at Pay-Recovery.com, took the case knowing that jurisdictional complexity would be the primary obstacle. He had worked multi-country cases before and understood where the pressure points were.
The Fake License Problem at Scale
The firm had fabricated regulatory credentials in detail. The license numbers were real, but they belonged to other companies entirely. It was only when the couple’s lawyer attempted to verify the accounts directly with regulators that the deception became visible.
Twenty-two months of payments meant 22 months of transaction records across four different payment processors. Moretti treated that volume as an advantage rather than a problem.
The Alessandro Moretti Approach
- Regulatory Fraud Documentation: Moretti obtained written confirmation from both the FCA and SEC that no registered entities matched the names on the client’s documents. This formed the cornerstone of the fraud case and was filed in every jurisdiction involved.
- Payment Chain Investigation: Over 22 months, payments had moved through four different processors. Moretti traced each one and identified two processors registered in jurisdictions with active bilateral legal cooperation agreements.
- Multi-Jurisdictional Asset Freeze: Legal filings were submitted simultaneously in Spain, the UK, and the processor’s registration country. Two of the four payment processors cooperated fully within the first 30 days.
- Institutional Recovery: The case qualified for Pay-Recovery’s institutional tier. A dedicated legal team coordinated the recovery across four months of parallel proceedings.
The Result: $275,000 Recovered
The full $275,000 was recovered. The process took six months from intake to final restitution, with the couple receiving updates on a bi-weekly basis throughout.
“We never thought we would see that money again. Alessandro and his team did not give up even when the process was slow.”
Long-Duration Fraud Is Harder But Not Impossible
Funds moved over 22 months are spread across many transactions and many jurisdictions. That complexity is exactly what sophisticated fraud operations count on. Pay-Recovery has the institutional infrastructure to pursue cases that span years and multiple borders, consolidating what appears to be an impossibly large problem into a structured, legal recovery process.
