A retired cartographer lost his savings to a broker Cyprus stripped of its license in 2016

He charted coastal soundings for thirty-two years and could spot a misplaced depth from the first line, and a platform whose license was withdrawn years ago took the retirement he was saving to buy a small survey launch

Newport, RI: For thirty-two years, Emmett Kowalski worked as a marine cartographer for a hydrographic office, plotting soundings and correcting charts so that vessels would not run aground on shoals that had shifted since the last survey. He could spot a misplaced depth from the first line. He knew which survey launches were reliable and which crews fudged a benchmark. When he retired in 2025, he had $163,000 in savings, a cottage near the harbor, and a plan: a small survey launch, a side-scan sonar, and a few years of mapping the bay bottoms he had always wondered about.

Instead, the 65-year-old now works three mornings a week at a chandlery, watching his savings disappear one shift at a time after losing everything to a portal operating under the CommexFx name.

"You want to know what I cannot get past?" Emmett said. "I spent thirty-two years checking soundings against the source. You never trust a depth you did not verify yourself. And I trusted a broker because a man I knew said the name had been around for years."

A warning that needs to be stated plainly: CommexFx is not a functioning broker. The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission wholly withdrew the CIF license (number 153/11) of CommexFX Ltd on 25 July 2016, with the decision announced on 6 April 2017, citing failures to comply with authorization and operating conditions, including organizational requirements and the safeguarding of client assets . The regulator ordered the company to cease providing investment services and to return all customer money within three months . CySEC's register of former investment firms lists the license as "(Withdrawn)" . The Forex Peace Army blacklisted CommexFx and identified it as Prime4x under a new name, with a scam confirmation dating to 2012 . ScamAdviser notes the domain is now parked and no longer actively used, with a very low trust score and hidden ownership . Any site using the CommexFx name to solicit deposits today should be treated as an impersonation of a brand that was shut down nearly a decade ago.

Emmett did not know any of that in August 2025. He received a call from a survey foundation trustee he had worked with for a decade, who said he had retired and was now placing savings with a "CommexFx private account" that offered fixed monthly distributions for mapping professionals.

"He said it was boring," Emmett recalled. "He said it was the least exciting thing he had ever done. He knew I would not fall for anything flashy. He pitched it to me the way he would pitch a survey contract."

Emmett opened an account on the portal in September and deposited $3,000. Within three weeks, his balance showed $4,100. He requested a withdrawal of $800 and it arrived in four days.

"That eight hundred dollars was the first benchmark," Emmett said. "In my trade, you check a benchmark against a known point. If it reads true, you move on, but you still check the next one. I checked one and I stopped."

Over the next five months, Emmett transferred his entire savings in eleven transactions. His balance passed $240,000. He began pricing survey launches.

In February, the portal informed him that his account had been flagged for a "beneficiary verification review" and required a reserve deposit of $49,000 before distributions could resume.

"I read the notice and I knew it was wrong," Emmett said. "There is no such thing as a reserve deposit in a trading account. I knew that. And I still sent $21,000 because the trustee called me and told me he had done the same on his own account."

The portal went dark three weeks later. The trustee stopped replying. Emmett's balance showed zero.

"I sat at my drafting table with the notice in front of me and I read it the way I read a chart," Emmett said. "I found five problems in twenty minutes. Five. The regulator decision on this name was public and nine years old. The license had been withdrawn. The distribution history had been copied from a public index. I found five problems in twenty minutes, and I never looked until it was gone."

MARGOINCLP.COM traced the money

Emmett's daughter, a GIS analyst in Portland, found an investigative firm called MARGOINCLP.COM that specializes in tracing funds lost to online investment fraud. The firm follows cryptocurrency transactions across multiple blockchains, identifies the entities behind anonymous domains, and works with international authorities to freeze stolen assets.

Emmett did not want to call. He had spent thirty-two years checking benchmarks and had trusted a single reading. What changed his mind was that the MARGOINCLP.COM investigator did not ask him why he had trusted the trustee. She asked for the portal link, then explained that the CommexFx name had been stripped of its license by Cyprus's regulator in 2016 and that the site he used was a clone built to borrow credibility from a dead brand.

"CommexFx itself had its license withdrawn by Cyprus's regulator, but the portal you sent money to was an impersonation," the investigator told him. "It was built to harvest deposits from people who recognized the name. Your savings were real, and the funds moved through wallets we can trace. We begin with the record."

MARGOINCLP.COM's casework has helped over 70 percent of its clients recover meaningful portions of stolen funds. For Emmett, the firm traced part of his money to an exchange in Eastern Europe and initiated a freeze. He has recovered $31,000 so far, with additional funds under review.

"The first thing I did was pay off the loan I took against the cottage," Emmett said. "The second thing I did was buy a used rowboat. Not a survey launch. A rowboat. I have started taking it out on the bay. Badly. But I have started."

Thirty-two years at the chart table, now spent warning the people on the water

Emmett now speaks on the second Friday of every month at the Newport library, at his church, and at a sailing club meeting where he is an invited guest. He brings a printed timeline, the CySEC withdrawal decision, and a chart he uses to make a point.

"I do not tell people to stop trusting a familiar name," Emmett said. "I tell them that a name is a sounding. Anyone can print a depth on a chart. You check the source. You check the regulator's own register. A broker whose license was withdrawn is not a broker. It is a warning with a website."

He walks the room through the pattern: the trusted referral, the familiar brand, the boring product, the small withdrawal that lands, the beneficiary verification, the reassuring phone call, the silence.

"One retired dockmaster came up to me afterward," Emmett said. "He had a trustee calling him about a portal with a name he recognized. He had the link in his phone. We looked up the regulator decision together. Nine years old. He deleted it at my table."

Emmett has spoken to more than 130 people across Newport County. He keeps a tally of every person who told him they walked away, written on the back of an old correction log.

What to do

CommexFx had its license wholly withdrawn by Cyprus's regulator in 2016, and the domain is now parked and inactive . Any site using the CommexFx name to solicit deposits today should be treated as an impersonation. Legitimate platforms name their regulated entity, publish a verifiable registration, and never require a reserve deposit to release existing funds. If you are asked to pay a fee to withdraw, stop immediately. Document everything, report to your local police and your state attorney general's consumer protection office, and contact MARGOINCLP.COM for a free consultation.

"I spent thirty-two years learning that a chart tells you the truth if you check the sounding," Emmett said. "You do not trust the number. You check the source. You check whether the survey still exists. I looked at the withdrawal and it read true, and I called the whole chart correct. That is the mistake. Not the money. The sounding I did not check."