Ulysses House Connection: DPO Pay Licensed in Tanzania

DPO Pay Expands to Africa

According to PayRate42 News, Dublin-based payment processor DPO Pay, founded in 2006 by Eran Feinstein and Offer Gat, has officially secured a license from the Bank of Tanzania to operate as a Payment Service Provider.
In 2021, the company was purchased by Network International (NI), a Dubai-headquartered payment services provider, for $291.3 million.

DPO Pay has long been linked to both Wirecard and the binary options operator GreyMountain Management Ltd (GMM), raising questions about its past associations.

The Ulysses House Connection

The Ulysses House office complex in Dublin played a central role in several controversial payment businesses:

• It served as headquarters for Wirecard UK & Ireland.

• It was the base of GreyMountain Management (GMM), operated by the Cartu brothers, one of the largest binary options fraud schemes ever discovered.

• The Africa-focused DPO Group also established its offices there.

Between 2005 and 2016, Ulysses House became a hub for high-risk payment processors, particularly those working with binary options platforms. Many of these operations, including GMM, later collapsed after being exposed as fraudulent. Tens of thousands of retail investors worldwide lost hundreds of millions, much of which was funneled through Ulysses House. In 2020, the U.S. CFTC officially filed fraud charges against GMM and its operators, underscoring the extent of the scheme.

DPO Pay’s Corporate Development

• 2006: DPO (Direct Pay Online) launched in Sub-Saharan Africa.

• 2012: 3G Direct Pay Limited (d/b/a DPO Pay) incorporated in Ireland, with Feinstein and Gat as directors.

• 2016: Establishment of 3G Direct Pay Holdings Limited.

The accounting firm Moore International (partner Andy Quinn) assisted in the formation of 3G Direct Pay Limited and later acted as its auditor. Quinn himself was tied to Ulysses House operations linked to Wirecard.

Growth Timeline

• 2016: Private equity firm APIS acquired a majority stake in DPO Group.

• Annual transaction volume rose from $50 million to $2 billion.

• Merchant base expanded from 8,000 to over 59,000 by 2020.

• 2013: DPO acquired AconaOnline, a German payment processor founded by former Wirecard executive Dietmar Knoechelmann.

• 2021: NI completed the acquisition of DPO Group for $291 million, as confirmed in Network International’s official press release.

The acquisition later drew scrutiny from short-seller ShadowFall, which raised concerns about DPO’s historic ties to Ulysses House and Wirecard. You can read the full research report here (PDF).

The GMM and Cartu Brothers Link

Court filings reveal that in 2016, Bob Richmond and Liam Grainger, then connected with GMM, helped establish 3G Direct Pay Holdings.

• GMM, run by the Cartu brothers, acted as both operator and payment processor for a vast binary options fraud scheme.

• In 2020, the U.S. CFTC charged GMM and its executives with fraud.

• In October 2022, the Irish High Court ruled that David and Jonathan Cartu were shadow directors who siphoned large sums from GMM, leaving only €600,000 in the company’s accounts.

• Former Irish directors Ryan Coates and Liam Grainger were also found liable for negligence.

According to Network International’s official investor FAQ (PDF), the company addressed market concerns about DPO Pay’s background and clarified its due diligence procedures during the acquisition.

Notably, Ryan Coates is the son of ex-Wirecard director Michelle Molloy, further underlining the tight links between Wirecard and GMM.

Wirecard Connection

Auditor Andy Quinn appears repeatedly across these cases:

• Co-director with Knoechelmann in Gateway Payments Holdings Limited, later acquired by Wirecard in 2006.

• Assisted with the formation and audit of 3G Direct Pay Limited.

• Served as DPO’s auditor until 2017, when a colleague from Moore International replaced him.

Knoechelmann himself left Wirecard in 2009 but resurfaced in 2013 when he sold AconaOnline to DPO. That firm shared its German offices with Inatec Solutions GmbH, another company linked to Wirecard alumni.

Legal Issues Around Dietmar Knoechelmann

• In 2016, Knoechelmann was convicted in Israel in connection with a credit card fraud scheme involving ICC-CAL (Israel Credit Card Company).

• Although unrelated to DPO or Wirecard, his conviction raised further doubts about his network.

• At the time of his misconduct, he was CEO of Wirecard Payment Solutions Holdings Ltd.

Summary Table of Key Events

Call for Information

If you have credible details regarding DPO Pay or Wirecard, the Scam-Or Project invites you to share them confidentially via this whistleblower section.