Families and OAPs ‘raped of their savings’ by aggressive new investment scam which cops say is the ‘biggest fraud in the UK’

HEARTBROKEN pensioners are being driven to suicide by a sickening investment scam aimed at ‘raping them’ of their life savings.

Thousands of Britain’s elderly have lost millions of pounds in total as part of the so-called binary options plan.

And police say they are seeing a worrying rise in the crime – with two new cases reported EVERY DAY.

Some have even committed suicide after being swindled of sums in excess of £200,000, the con artists have alleged.

The average victim has lost £16,000.

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The devious ploy sees heartless salespeople harass the victims via email and phone, persuading them to invest small sums of around £250 in shares and currency.

All the while, a second wave of seemingly-charming brokers swoop in and persuade the pensioners to invest thousands more into the schemes.

Reports suggest many pensioners later have vast sums withdrawn from their credit cards WITHOUT their authorisation.

Victims are often convinced of get-rich-quick investment schemes using the vast pensions lumps sums recently freed up by the government.

But often the money is invested into useless companies never likely to make a profit for their investor.

One call centre insider even told the Mail that they were ordered to “rape clients” of their money.

Incredibly, despite the practice being illegal in the US and many European nations, a loophole in British law means there is no way to regulate it.

And authorities warned the current spate of fraud could be just the tip of a vast iceberg.

Financial regulator the FCA warned: “Most consumers describe having lost substantial sums of money.

“While this might be expected given the high-risk, win-or-lose nature of the activity, we are particularly concerned about the experiences many consumers report to us when trying to deal with unauthorised or unlicensed binary options firms.

“We regularly hear about such firms suddenly closing consumers’ trading accounts, refusing to pay back their funds and ceasing any further contact.”

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