Italy's Companies and Transactions Board (CONSOB) has ordered a ban on access to five new unauthorized investment websites, bringing the total to 1,000.。

In the latest "squeeze," CONSOB ordered the closure of five new websites offering financial services without proper authorisation.。

The latest round of closures includes:

• “Bitblanco” (website www.bitblanco.co and related page https://webtrader.bitblanco.co);
• “StormInvest” (website https://storminvest.io); Cryptogo365 Ltd (website https://cryptogo365.com);
• “TCRinvest” (website https://tcrinvest.com and related page https://trading.tcrinvest.com); and
• “EuroXTradeFX” (website www.euroxtradefx.com).

The Commission has been blocking websites since July 2019, when the "Decreto crescita" ("Growth Decree," Law No. 58 of June 28, 2019, article 36, paragraph 2 - terdecies) gave Consob the power to order Internet connection service providers to prohibit access from Italy to websites that offer financial services without proper authorization.。

Procedures are under way for internet service providers operating in Italy to block websites。Due to technical reasons, it may take several days to implement shielding。

Consob draws the attention of investors to the fact that in order to make informed investment choices, best efforts must be made and common-sense actions must be taken, which are essential to protect the safety of funds: these include, for websites offering financial services, checking in advance whether the operator in which they invest is authorized, and for websites offering financial products, checking whether they have published a prospectus。

To this end, the Consob website has made public all regulatory information to alert investors to financial fraud.。