Monthly Archives :

December 2018

St Helier Capital – Update

St Helier Capital – Update 150 150 Safe or Scam Support

Simon Whittley and St Helier Capital Management Ltd have filed the company’s overdue accounts. They are very concerning for people who were duped into buying Preference Shares. Since the company first started taking in funds in December 2016 it reports that by the end of February 2018, a mere 14 months later, it has NIL cash in the bank. It is owed £24,000. The bad news is that it owes £711,000.

Here are two classic Simon Whittley statements: “The director of the company has elected not to include a copy of the profit and loss account within the financial statements”. 

“As at 28 February 2018 it [the company] had minimal cash resources and net current liabilities of £711,037. As of this date the company has generated no trading revenue from which to meet these liabilities and is dependent on funding from related undertakings.”

What this means is that Simon Whittley is using money raised from investors in other junk bonds he has established to keep this junk bond going. The accounts show that St Helier Capital owes £57,000 to Hawksbill Property Holdings Plc (one of his companies funded by investors) and £114,000 to Win River Developments Ltd (another one of his companies funded by investors). No doubt he will be looking to establish another junk bond in the near future to try to capture another group of fresh investors. To view the latest accounts click on this link

Recent new companies which involve Simon Whittley include Grimaud 365 Ltd, Glenview Natural Energy Ltd and Antrim Road Developments Ltd. Mr Whittley tended to work closely with Simon Paler. Simon Paler was the man who would willingly lend his name and act as a company director for Whittley’s ventures. Not any longer it seems. In the past few months Simon Paler has resigned from many of Whittley’s companies.

One company not mentioned is Avianta Capital Consulting Ltd. Simon Paler resigned as a director in October 2018. The company lists its activities as “venture and development capital” and “renting and leasing of air passenger transport equipment”. Simon Whittley’s wife owns 50% of the shares in the company.

SOS has a website for St Helier investors. It can be accessed via this link.

To view the previous blog comment on St Helier Capital Markets and Simon Whittley click here.

StratXMarkets Update

StratXMarkets Update 150 150 Safe or Scam Support

SOS is working with investors who invested very large sums into StratXMarkets, a binary option scam. Typically binary option scams involve ‘cash mules’ i.e companies which act as accomplices to take in the investment money. They provide smokescreens making it difficult for investigators to follow the money and identify the main perpetrators of the scam. A typical large-scale binary option scam will often use dozens of cash mule companies.

Cash mules are by no means innocent parties. They know exactly what they are doing and they don’t expect to get caught. They are in effect accomplices in a fraud.

We are having success in identifying some of the people involved in the StratXMarkets scam. A legal process was started in November 2018 against a UK party we identified as having received £380,000 of investor funds. The party failed to adequately respond within the timeframe defined by law and we now look forward to the commencement of formal court action in January 2019.

There are other parties we have in our sights as having liability to refund further sums owed to investors. Action will also be taken against them in January 2019. We believe that if our investors are not refunded we will be in a position to press for criminal charges to be brought. Our separate binary option website can be viewed here.

If you have been the unfortunate victim of a binary option, trading or digital currency scam please contact us. We may be able to help.

To view the previous blog comment on StratXMarkets click here

European Property Coin – Update

European Property Coin – Update 150 150 Safe or Scam Support

Safe Or Scam has assisted investors with the first steps in a legal process against Clear View Marketing Services Ltd, the company behind the bogus digital currency called European Property Coin.

The company failed to respond to a legal claim within the statutory response period and our investor clients will now proceed to court.

On 21st December 2018 we received a letter from a solicitor representing Mr Yasir Gul of G. and S. Accountants Ltd. The letter alleges that comments we have made about Mr Yasir Gul have affected his business. He denies having received our letter sent in February 2018. That’s odd because we also sent it by email to his email address at info@gsaccountants.co.uk and we spoke to him on the phone about it. He told us at the time that his solicitor would deal with it.

To recap, our letter to Mr Gul asked him about the role of his company, Know Tax (High Wycombe) Ltd, which acted as the money collector for European Property Coin. We received no reply so we called him. He said his solicitor would be in touch. Well…… 9 months later his solicitor has now got in touch but it isn’t to answer our questions about Mr Gul’s involvement in European Property Coin, the scam which has taken in more than £1 million from ordinary members of the public. It was to ask us to remove comments made about Mr Yasir Gul. Unfortunately we cannot do that because he is party to a scam operation and is keeping his head down. If he wants us to remove information about him he should be more willing to co-operate. It is worth noting that at no time have we ever received any legal threats from European Property Coin despite repeatedly calling the product an outright scam. They know it’s a scam and they’re using fake names which is why they can’t go to a lawyer.

Since our contact in February, Mr Yasir Gul dissolved the company Know Tax (High Wycombe) Ltd in July 2018. He may think that means he doesn’t have to answer our questions. He may also think that instructing a solicitor will prevent us from mentioning him again in connection with his role in this scam. Well, as this new article shows, we have no intention of letting him get away with it. We have a clear strategy to expose European Property Coin and the people involved with it. Once we have accomplished that we will be turning our attention back onto Mr Yasir Gul.

In our letter of 23rd February 2018 we made things very clear to Mr Yasir Gul. In our final sentence. We wrote “We hope you are willing to assist because we take a very simple view when it comes to scams. People are either on the side of the victims or they are on the side of the scam operator.’

We recently changed the hosting arrangement for the website we published on this matter. We have now reinstated it and over the next few weeks we will be posting information back up. The website can be accessed by clicking on this link.

To view the previous blog comment on European Property Coin and Clear View Marketing Services Ltd click here.

Osage 1, Phenco, Kansas MB, Kansas B2 – Update

Osage 1, Phenco, Kansas MB, Kansas B2 – Update 150 150 Safe or Scam Support

Investors remain frustrated by non-payment of overdue royalties for Osage 1, Phenco, Kansas MB, Kansas B2 and Sooner Energy.

The company director, Martin Finch, has been giving a weak and implausible excuse. It is that he is struggling to find a currency exchange company which will change US dollars into pounds sterling.

Everyone knows it is easy enough to change USD into GBP. The problem is that every one of the respectable companies would carry out anti-money laundering checks. They would also insist on knowing where the money was coming from and how the funds had been generated. That is what the law requires.

Yet, 6 months after payments should have been made to investors, Mr Finch is still having problems finding a currency exchange service that will open an account.

The previous currency exchange service was based in Dubai. Unusual for an investment which allegedly involves payments from the USA to the UK to be routed via Dubai when there are so many reputable currency exchange providers in both the USA and the UK.

More about Osage 1, Phenco, Kansas MB and Kansas B2 can be found on the project-specific website using this link

To view the previous blog comment on this site referring to Osage 1, Phenco, Kansas MB, Kansas B2 and Sooner Energy please click here.

Prosperity – Update

Prosperity – Update 150 150 Safe or Scam Support

A UK solicitor has proposed a recovery action to Prosperity investors at Bentley Court and Parkwood Court in Keighley, West Yorkshire. Safe Or Scam is providing investigative support and analysis to the solicitor. A barrister’s opinion has been obtained which outlines a case for compensation and cancellation of existing property purchase contracts.

The solicitor is holding conference calls with investors at the beginning of January. The investor group will close a week later to allow the claim to be advanced.

A new investor website has been published providing limited information on issues relating to the developments. The website can be accessed via this link.

To view the previous blog comment on Prosperity, Bentley Court and Parkwood Court click here.

Essex and London Properties – Update

Essex and London Properties – Update 150 150 Safe or Scam Support

A proposal to investors in Essex and London Properties who have made themselves known to Safe Or Scam will be made in early January 2019. This was delayed whilst the solicitor partner sought the views of the Official Receiver. The position has now been clarified and we have the agreement of the solicitor to proceed.

Safe Or Scam has involved other professional parties to protect the position of all investors in the Limited Partnership. We believe there was only a token effort made to trace and recover money sent overseas which is evidenced by the fact that only 10% – 15% of the money has been recovered and all of that was sitting in UK bank accounts. To date, none of the money sent overseas has been recovered. The police investigation was handled by one retired police officer brought back from retirement. There is likely to have been budget restrictions which would not have allowed for a thorough investigation of the overseas aspects.

If you are an investor and you do not receive an email outlining the proposal before 10th January 2019 please contact us and we will send it over to you.

SOS has established a separate website on the Essex and London Properties scam which can be accessed via this link.

To view the previous blog comment on E&LP click here.

OurSpace Investors – Update

OurSpace Investors – Update 150 150 Safe or Scam Support

Safe Or Scam is working with a group of OurSpace investors to recover their investments in the OurSpace workspaces investment. The OurSpace project has collapsed. This was inevitable as it was a clone of the disgraced workspace investment operated by Bar Works Inc in the USA. That scheme has been adjudged to be a Ponzi Scheme by a US court and the architect of the scheme has been arrested by the FBI and is facing charges carrying a maximum prison term of 40 years. A number of the people involved with OurSpace were also involved with Bar Works Inc.

Efforts were made to place the assets of OurSpace beyond the reach of ordinary investors by transferring them to a new Malta company called OurSpace Investments Ltd. It is questionable whether that effort was lawful for a number of reasons, not least the fact that the director Kevan Halliwell misled investors. A challenge to OIL ownership of the assets can be expected.

Shortly after the attempt, OurSpace Investments Ltd ceased all payments and has now been placed into administration. SOS has written to the administrator seeking clarification on a number of points. Further information is available on an investors’ website via this link

To view the previous blog comment on OurSpace workspaces click here.

Financial Plus – Bogus Share Offers

Financial Plus – Bogus Share Offers 150 150 Safe or Scam Support

Safe Or Scam has started an investigation into the activities of Financial Plus Ltd operating out of Hong Kong. We were approached by an investor who invested substantial sums to purchase shares in Spotify, Alipay and Tesla through Financial Plus. It was a scam. The Share Certificates are fake and the investor owns no shares in these companies.

The scam involves dozens of Hong Kong companies acting as cash mules for the people behind Financial Plus. The mule companies are incorporated solely for the purpose of opening bank accounts and taking in money for the scammers. They act as cut-out companies in an attempt to make it more difficult to follow the money trail.

The scam involves follow-up activities using other fake organisations who will claim they are holding the shares. They will then offer to sell the shares for a fee. It is the same people.

When the non-existent shares are supposedly sold for at least 10 times the price the investor paid, another fake organisation will claim that they are holding this huge sum of money and will release it after the investor pays the tax (normally 10% of the profit). All the investor has to do is send them the tax money and they will process it. It is the same people again.

We have published a new website on the Financial Plus scam. It can be viewed here

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